Two  Moods 


A  Man 

Horace  G. 
Hutchinson 


Two  Moods  of  a  Man 


By 

Horace  G.  Hutchinson 

Author  of  "A  Friend  of  Nelson,"  "  Book  of  Golf  and  Golfers 
"  Dreams  and  their  Meaning,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  and  London 
vibe  "Knickerbocker  press 


COPYRIGHT,  1905 

BV 
HORACE  G.  HUTCHINSON 


Ube  Unicherbocher  press,  Hew 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  SQUEAK  OF  A  BOOT       ...  I 

II.  HIS  "  PLACE  IN  THE  COUNTRY  "             .  13 

III.  VENUS  OF  THE  VAN  2O 

IV.  BREAKFAST          .....  34 
V.  THE  PHILOSOPHIC  MUSE      ...  40 

VI.  THE  DAEMON        .....  50 

VII.  JIM  LEE,  THE  GYPSY  ....  73 

VIII.  DAWN  OF  THE  SECOND  MOOD      .            .  77 

IX.  GEORGE  HOOD'S  FATHER    ...  99 

X.  "  POOR  GRACIA  !  "      ....  122 

XI.  IN  THE  NEW  FOREST  .  .  .129 

XII.  THE  SECOND  MOOD  AT  ITS  ZENITH        .  144 

XIII.  THE  HAND  OF  DEATH            .            .            .  157 

XIV.  GEORGE  HOOD'S  SECOND  MARRIAGE      .  162 
XV.  THE  RETURN  FROM  THE  HONEYMOON  .  1  70 

XVI.  THE  SOOTHING  OF  THE  SEA  .  .176 

XVII.  WIFE  AND  HUSBAND  ....  190 

XVIII.  THE  BONDS  OF  MATRIMONY           .            .  2O2 
iii 


213S029 


iv  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX.  FUMES  OF  OBLIVION    .            .            .            .212 

XX.  THE  SECOND  MRS.  HOOD      .            .            .229 

XXI.       REMORSE 254 

XXII.  EXPLANATIONS              ....       285 

XXIII.       A  FELONY 297 

XXIV.  THE  HAND  OF  DEATH           .            .           .      305 


TWO  MOODS  OF  A  MAN 


Two  Moods  of  a  Man 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    SQUEAK    OF    A    BOOT 

BY  a  mere  chance  it  happened  that  I 
saw  into  the  soul  and  life  of  one  man 
more  clearly  and  more  closely  than  a  man, 
or  even  maybe  a  woman,  often  sees  into 
another  man's  soul — perhaps  more  clearly 
than  it  is  often  given  to  see  into  one's 
own.  Had  it  not  occurred  to  this  man  to 
write  a  certain  letter  to  his  bootmaker,  or 
had  he  written  that  letter  ten  minutes 
earlier  or  ten  minutes  later,  it  is  likely  that 
I  never  should  have  known  him.  I  do 
not  affirm  that  he  was  a  good  man,  still 
less  that  he  was  a  great  one.  But  per- 
haps even  the  most  ordinary  human  being 


2  Ube  Squeafc  of  a  Boot 

would  seem  remarkable  were  his  heart  and 
soul  and  their  workings  (if  it  is  proper  to 
speak  of  them  as  two  and  not  as  one  and 
the  same)  seen  clearly  and  closely. 

It  is  possible  and  easy  for  those  to 
whom  my  friend's  talk  of  his  philosophies 
and  his  fancies  may  seem  no  better  than 
foolishness  to  skip  much  of  this — if  they 
jump  over  Chapters  V.  and  VI.  altogether 
they  will  be  perhaps  happier,  and  con- 
ceivably no  less  wise — but  for  those  to 
whom  they  do  not  seem  intolerable  it  may 
be  helpful  to  the  understanding  of  the 
story  to  read  them,  for  a  story  is  more 
easily  understood  if  there  be  some  know- 
ledge of  the  person  who  plays  the  chief 
role  in  it ;  and  these  philosophies  and  fan- 
cies were  part  of  the  very  man,  the  chief 
part  and  chief  interest  of  him. 

Obviously  this  is  a  book  without  a 
hero,  although  it  is  mainly,  or  more  or 
less,  concerned  with  one  man ;  but  just 
because  it  is  a  man  that  it  is  concerned 
with,  and  not  a  lay  figure,  therefore  it  is 
not  concerned  with  either  a  hero  or  a 
villain  ;  for  a  man  is  neither  of  these, 


Squeafe  of  a  JSoot  3 

though  composed  of  both — that  is,  a  man 
of  flesh,  not  the  stuffed  man  of  a  bad 
novel.  A  good  novel  does  not  have 
heroes  and  villains,  as  is  easily  noticed. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  a  man  to  be 
either  hero  or  villain,  but  that  presup- 
poses that  much  is  left  to  the  imagination, 
because  of  your  little  knowledge  of  the 
man.  But  of  this  man  I  had  a  good  deal 
of  knowledge.  It  was  possible,  of  course, 
to  have  called  the  book  by  the  man's 
name  ;  but  that  would  convey  nothing, 
because  no  one  will  have  heard  of  the 
man  before  beginning  to  read  the  book. 
And  something  might  have  been  con- 
veyed by  calling  it  by  a  characteristic  of 
the  man,  such  as  "  The  man  with  the 
cast-iron  will,"  or  something  of  that  kind  ; 
only,  unfortunately,  the  man  had  nothing 
at  all  like  a  cast-iron  will,  and  was  very 
human  indeed — that  is  to  say,  a  medley  of 
characteristics.  Or  it  might  have  been 
possible  to  name  it  by  some  function  or 
office  that  the  man  exercised,  as  in  writing 
a  life  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  one  might  con- 
ceivably call  it  "  The  Colonial  Secretary  " 


4  Ube  Squeal?  of  a  Boot 

— only  that  there  might  exist  people  who 
do  not  think  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  as  the 
Colonial  Secretary,  but  rather  as  if  there 
might  be  others  ;  or,  again,  "  The  Saviour 
of  the  Empire,"  which  also,  however,  has 
the  drawback  that  a  section  of  the  com- 
munity might  not  perceive  that  it  applied 
of  necessary  and  inevitable  aptness  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  In  any  case  such  a  title 
was  not  eligible  in  the  present  instance, 
because  this  man  made  no  efforts  at  all 
for  the  salvation  of  the  Empire,  nor  for 
the  secretaryship  of  the  Colonies,  or  any 
other  department,  and  not  much  effort,  of 
any  normal  kind  at  all,  even  for  the  salva- 
tion of  his  own  soul. 

When  first  I  happened  to  meet  him  he 
was,  as  I  indicated,  writing  to  his  boot- 
maker. He  always  was  something  of  a  far- 
ceur. I  did  not  know  him  at  all  at  that  time. 
I  went  into  the  writing-room  of  a  club  in  St. 
James's  Street,  and  imagined  I  had  the 
room  to  myself.  There  was  nobody  there 
when  I  went  in,  and,  besides,  it  was  in 
September,  when  one  rather  expects  to 
have  a  club  to  oneself.  I  went  to  the 


Ube  Squeafe  of  a  JSoot  5 

writing-table  and  turned  over  the  blotting- 
book  preparatory  to  writing  a  letter,  when 
I  saw  a  letter  already  written  lying  open 
and  unfolded  within.  It  was  short  enough, 
very  clearly  written,  and  I  hardly  could 
have  helped  reading  it  if  I  had  tried.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  I  did  not  try  very  hard, 
one  way  or  the  other.  I  read  it  at  a  glance, 
and  was  so  surprised  at  it  that,  though  I 
am  not  much  in  the  habit  of  talking  to 
myself,  I  exclaimed  aloud,  "What  an  ex- 
traordinary letter ! " 

"  Ah, "  said  a  voice  behind  me,  of  some 
one  who  had  come  into  the  room  noise- 
lessly, almost  directly  following  me.  "  I 
think  it  is  my  letter  that  I  must  have  left 
there  when  I  went  out  a  moment  ago.  I 
had  forgotten  it.  Do  you  think  it  is  such 
an  extraordinary  letter  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  rising 
with  a  guilty  laugh. 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  answered.  "  You  could 
not  help  reading  it.  Do  you  think  it  so 
extraordinary  ?  " 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  it  is  a  quaint  letter — 
is  n't  it  ?  To  a  bootmaker,  I  suppose  ?  " 


6  Ube  Squeak  of  a  Boot 

This  was  the  letter: 

"  DEAR  SIR, — I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged 
to  send  back  one  of  the  three  pairs  of  boots 
last  sent  me.  Both  of  the  returned  pair 
squeak.  The  right  one  squeaks  louder 
than  a  pig  under  a  gate  and  the  left  one 
would  squeak  if  the  right  one  would  let  it 
be  heard.  You  must  either  get  the  squeak 
out  of  them  or  else  sell  them  to  a  church- 
warden for  taking  the  bag  up  the  aisle  in 
church.  "  Yours  faithfully, 

"  GEORGE  HOOD." 

"  Yes,  it 's  to  a  bootmaker,  naturally." 
"  Do  you  buy  three  pairs  at  a  time  ?  " 
"  Yes,  always — lay  them  down.  They 
improve  with  keeping,  you  know — very 
much,  boots,  like  wine.  I  wear  them  once 
or  twice  when  they  're  quite  green,  to  get 
them  into  shape ;  then  stow  them  by  to 
mature,  for  the  leather  to  toughen.  They 
wear  twice  as  long  then — that 's  economy, 
and  comfort  too.  It  means  you  only  have 
to  wear  new  boots  half  as  often  as  if  you 
always  wore  them  fresh  from  the  shop, 
and  new  boots  are  the  devil  for  discomfort. 
Don't  you  find  them  so  ?  " 


TEbe  Squeafc  of  a  JSoot  7 

I  treated  the  answer  as  obvious.  "You 
seem  to  have  given  it  a  lot  of  thought."  I 
said. 

"  I  always  do.  I  always  think  out  every- 
thing— everything  bearing  on  practical  life, 
I  mean.  The  other  things  don't  let  them- 
selves be  thought  out — the  things  that  do 
not  bear  on  practical  life — you  never  get 
to  the  end  of  them.  It  saves  time  think- 
ing out  the  others — makes  for  comfort,  like 
storing  up  your  boots." 

I  was  getting  some  lights  on  my  new 
friend.  I  had  seen  him  in  the  club  before, 
but  never  had  spoken  to  him,  never  had 
noticed  him.  He  disliked  squeaky  boots. 
That  was  a  light.  It  was  rather  a  negative 
light,  it  is  true,  but  it  went  for  something. 
You  cannot  tell  what  a  man  is  by  the  fact 
of  his  dislike  of  a  squeaky  boot,  but  you 
can  tell  what  he  is  not — not  the  utterly 
healthy  insensible  being  that  does  not  no- 
tice a  thin  noise.  He  was  a  man  with 
nerves,  to  be  irritated. 

In  the  club  are  certain  lockers,  or  rather 
pigeon-holes  with  locked  doors,  that  may 
be  hired  by  any  of  the  members  for  the 


8  ZTbe  Squeak  ot  a  Boot 

rent,  wholly  extortionate  but  not  out  of 
proportion  to  their  convenience,  of  five 
shillings  a  year,  in  which  may  be  left 
pipes  and  tobacco  pouch,  papers  —  what 
you  will. 

My  friend  went  to  one  of  these  and 
opened  it  with  a  key  on  his  watch-chain. 
All  that  it  contained  were  a  tobacco  pouch, 
a  short  black  clay  pipe,  and  a  volume  of 
Browning.  This  was  another  light  — 
Browning  and  a  black  clay  pipe.  The 
association  suggested  a  complex  charac- 
ter in  their  owner.  The  name  on  the 
pigeon-hole  was  "  G.  Hood." 

He  was  a  big  strong  man,  perhaps 
more  than  thirty,  with  brown  hair  and 
beard,  dark  brown  with  golden  lights,  a 
face  giving  a  general  impression  of  dark 
eyes  and  a  complexion  owing  more  to  the 
air  of  the  fields  than  towns — an  impression 
of  the  virility  and  health  that  explained 
the  black  clay  pipe,  and  a  dreaminess 
about  the  eyes  that  explained  the  Brown- 
ing. Somewhere  about  the  mouth  there 
ought  to  have  been  the  lines  of  humor 
to  explain  the  letter  to  the  bootmaker,  but 


ZTbe  Squeafe  of  a  Boot  9 

the  golden  brown  hair  of   the  face  hid 
these,  if  they  were  there. 

The  acquaintance  so  begun  prospered. 
We  "  passed  the  time  of  day "  when  we 
met  in  the  club ;  sometimes  we  had 
luncheon  at  adjoining  tables  and  talked 
meanwhile.  I  asked  other  members  of 
the  club  about  him.  All  liked  him,  but 
none  knew  much  of  him.  He  did  not 
seem  to  be  the  kind  of  man  that  makes 
friends,  or  if  he  had  friends  they  were  not 
of  the  club  ;  but  of  acquaintances,  friendly 
acquaintances,  he  had  plenty.  After  a 
little  while  it  seemed  as  if  I  were  his 
friend  rather  more  than  any  one  else  in  the 
club,  and  yet  I  knew  practically  nothing 
about  him.  All  our  talk  was  of  the  every- 
day subjects — politics,  theatres,  sport — 
that  do  not  reveal  the  soul  that  is  in  a 
man,  if  he  has  one — that  is,  of  course,  sup- 
posing his  trade  is  not  politics  or  acting. 
Then,  one  day,  much  to  my  surprise,  he 
asked  me  to  come  and  stay  with  him  in 
the  country — it  was  the  first  time,  by-the- 
bye,  that  I  ever  had  heard  him  mention 
that  he  had  a  place  in  the  country — and  I 


io  Ube  Squeafe  of  a  Boot 

said  I  should  be  delighted,  and  asked  him 
where  it  was.  To  that  very  common-place 
question  he  returned,  I  think,  the  most 
extraordinary  answer  that  any  man  ever 
did  return.  Even  he  hesitated  a  little 
about  it,  as  if  he  felt  I  should  deem  it 
unusual.  "  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  ex- 
actly know." 

"  Not  know  !"  I  repeated  blankly. 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  not  exactly.  That  is  I 
know  pretty  nearly,  but  not  quite." 

I  looked  hard  at  him.  There  was  no 
sign  of  insanity  in  his  manner  or  appear- 
ance, yet  from  that  moment,  until  I  actu- 
ally saw  his  country  place,  I  never  doubted 
at  all  that  he  was  slightly  mad.  But  there 
was  not  the  least  indication  of  a  tendency 
to  violent  derangement.  He  was  perfectly 
gentle.  When  a  man  is  like  that,  one 
does  not  wish  to  press  him  too  hardly, 
and  in  any  case  it  is  rather  delicate  work 
questioning  a  man  who  seems  disposed  to 
evade  your  inquiries  about  the  hospitality 
he  is  offering  you.  So  I  said  again  in 
some  common  form  of  words  that  I  should 
be  delighted  to  come.  He  suggested 


Squeafe  of  a  Boot  H 

Monday  of  the  following  week  as  the  first 
day  of  my  visit.  "  I  think  it's  sure  to  be 
Victoria,"  he  said,  "  for  the  station,  and  I  '11 
let  you  know  the  train.  Will  an  afternoon 
train  suit  you  ?  It  won't  be  more  than 
two  hours  at  most  from  town." 

That  was  agreed.  On  the  Saturday 
I  had  a  note  from  him  saying  the  train 
went  at  4  P.M.,  and  at  ten  minutes  to  the 
hour  I  met  him,  according  to  the  sugges- 
tion of  his  note,  under  the  station  clock. 
44  What  station  do  we  book  to  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  think  Hartfield  will  be  best,"  he  said. 
"  I  have  made  arrangements  for  having  us 
met  there." 

Accordingly  I  booked  to  Hartfield. 
When  we  were  in  the  train  he  said  :  "  By- 
the-bye,  I  ought  to  have  told  you — I  hope 
you  have  n't  brought  any  dress  clothes  or 
that  sort  of  thing.  My  wife  and  I  live 
very  simply." 

It  was  the  first  time  that  he  had  men- 
tioned a  wife. 

I  said  that  I  had  dress  clothes,  but  could 
dine  very  contentedly  in  any  others.  We 
arrived  at  Hartfield  about  a  quarter  to  six, 


12  tTbe  Squeafc  of  a  Boot 

without  a  change.  It  is  a  station  between 
East  Grinstead  and  Tunbridge  Wells, 
on  the  edge  of  Ashdown  Forest.  One 
way  of  explaining,  to  those  who  do  not 
know  the  geography,  where  this  fine 
tract  of  forest  or  common  land  lies,  is 
to  indicate  how  the  railway  lines  roughly 
define  it.  It  is  too  highly  tilted  up  and 
severely  ridged  for  any  railway  company 
to  care  to  run  its  lines  across  it.  It  lies, 
then,  bounded  by  the  line  from  East 
Grinstead  to  Groombridge  on  the  north, 
by  the  line  from  Groombridge  to  Uckfield 
on  the  east  and  south,  and  by  the  line 
from  East  Grinstead  to  Sheffield  Park  on 
the  west.  That  will  fairly  indicate  where 
it  lies — in  the  northern  angle  of  Sussex. 


CHAPTER  II 

HIS    "  PLACE    IN    THE    COUNTRY  " 

"  WE  are  very  simple  people,"  he  had 
said.  "  I  hope  you  have  not  brought 
more  than  a  hand-bag.  We  may  have  to 
carry  it  a  bit  ourselves." 

Nevertheless,  a  fly  was  awaiting  us  at 
Hartfield  station  on  arrival  of  the  train. 
The  dusk  was  falling.  My  friend  had 
some  little  difficulty,  as  it  appeared,  in 
explaining  to  the  driver  exactly  where  he 
wished  to  go.  It  struck  me  as  curious 
that  the  man  did  not  know  the  house. 
The  road  we  followed,  after  passing 
through  the  village  of  Hartfield,  was  one 
of  exceeding  steepness,  both  in  its  ups 
and  downs,  so  we  made  slow  progress.  It 
also  struck  me  that  probably  it  was  a  road 
of  exceeding  beauty,  had  the  light  allowed 
us  to  see  more  of  the  landscape ;  but 
13 


14       trts  "  iplace  in  tbe  Country  " 

before  we  had  been  driving  many  minutes 
the  warm  summer  night  had  descended, 
obliterating  all  color.  We  passed  one  or 
two  farms  or  cottages  with  lights  twinkling 
in  the  windows,  but  evidently  the  country 
was  a  wild  and  sparsely  inhabited  one. 
On  the  whole  our  way  was  very  much 
more  up  than  down,  and  it  seemed  that 
we  must  have  reached  a  considerable  ele- 
vation when  my  friend  called  to  the  driver 
to  stop. 

"  I  think  this  is  about  as  near  as  we  can 
get,"  he  said,  stepping  out  and  lifting  my 
bag  from  the  carriage.  He  had  his  own 
bag  also,  but  it  was  a  very  small  affair,  not 
much  larger  than  the  bags  that  business 
men  use  for  their  papers.  He  paid  the 
driver.  "  I  think  this  will  be  our  way,"  he 
then  said,  striking  off  the  road  along  what 
was  little  more  than  a  rabbit  run  across  a 
heather-clad  waste. 

For  the  first  time  in  course  of  the  ex- 
pedition my  heart  began  to  beat  anxiously 
with  the  sensation  of  fear.  I  began  to  be 
assured  that  I  had  committed  myself  to 
the  guidance  of  a  lunatic.  At  every  stage 


Ibis  "  place  in  tbe  Country  "       15 

of  our  journey  something  or  other  had 
occurred  to  arouse  my  surprise.  The 
man's  extraordinary  doubt  as  to  the  sta- 
tion we  should  come  to,  the  conversation 
between  him  and  the  flyman  as  to  the  way, 
finally  the  indecision  that  he  expressed  as 
we  took  the  plunge  on  foot  over  the  track- 
less heath  into  the  darkness — all  these  ex- 
traordinary circumstances,  each  in  itself 
trivial  enough,  maybe,  had  a  cumulative 
force  that,  as  I  suddenly  realized  the  sum 
of  them,  made  my  heart  stand  still  with 
fear.  I  looked  back  to  where  the  horse 
and  fly  remained  on  the  road,  the  dark 
mass  of  carriage  and  steed  dimly  seen,  the 
light  of  the  lamp  twinkling  out  through 
the  mist  of  heat  rising  from  the  body  of 
the  horse  panting  from  the  exertions 
of  the  up-hill  road.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
here,  in  this  homely  fly  with  its  driver, 
was  my  last  remaining  link  with  the  sane 
world.  I  was  on  the  point  of  calling  my 
friend  to  halt  and  give  me  an  explanation 
when  the  flyman  turned  his  horse  about 
and  the  vehicle  began  to  redescend  the 
hill  again  at  the  horse's  slow  trot.  The 


1 6       1bis  "  place  in  tbe  Country  " 

last  bond  with  a  rational  civilization  was 
severed.  I  was  committed  to  follow  my 
lunatic — it  might  be  to  the  end  of  the 
earth. 

The  emotional  nature  of  man  is  curiously 
constituted.  While  the  horse,  the  carriage, 
and  the  driver  were  there,  within  hail,  I  had 
the  strongest  possible  inclination  to  call 
out  to  the  driver  to  wait  for  me  until  I 
should  get  from  my  friend  a  distinct  ex- 
planation of  whither  he  was  leading  me. 
But  no  sooner  had  the  driver  gone  clean 
out  of  the  world,  so  far  as  any  present 
help  in  my  circumstances  was  concerned, 
and  the  rumbling  of  the  vehicle  died  away 
in  the  distance,  than  a  change  of  emotion 
took  complete  hold  of  me.  I  felt  no  sense 
of  fear  any  more.  The  die  was  cast  now. 
I  was  in  for  it,  committed  to  the  adven- 
ture, and  at  once  the  spirit  of  adventure, 
dormant  no  doubt,  as  an  inheritance  from 
far-back  generations,  in  the  heart  of  even 
the  most  conventional  of  men,  asserted  it- 
self with  force  that  left  no  nerve  channels 
available  along  which  other  emotions  could 
make  themselves  felt.  I  was  not  alarmed. 


Dis  "place  in  tbe  Country"        17 

I  was  but  the  more  entertained  and  ex- 
cited when  my  singular  guide  put  his 
fingers  into  his  mouth  and  whistled  in  a 
curious  and  peculiarly  shrill  manner  that 
was  positive  torture  in  the  ear-drums,  and 
even  seemed  to  rend  the  still  night  air  in 
a  way  that  one  could  hardly  fail  to  think 
grievous  to  it — a  strident  outrage  on  its 
peace.  And  if  this  was  a  peculiar  and  dis- 
tressing sound  enough,  it  was  answered 
from  the  depths  and  the  hazy  mists  in 
the  valley  below  by  a  voice  yet  more 
peculiar  and  weird,  repeating  again  and 
again  in  a  screaming  welcome,  echoing 
and  vibrating  through  the  still  night,  "  Ge- 
orge !  Ge-orge  ! "  almost  in  dissyllable. 

"What  is  that?"  I  asked,  faint  with 
astonishment. 

"  That  ? "  he  repeated  with  a  laugh. 
"  It  is  my  name — George  !  She  knows 
my  whistle." 

Again  the  strident  sounds,  in  the 
scarcely  human  voice,  came  shrilly  to  our 
ears,  "  Ge-orge  !  Ge-orge  ! " 

In  spite  of  all  the  spirit  of  adventure 
being  aroused,  a  cold  shudder  went  along 


1 8       ibis  "  place  tn  tbe  Country  " 

my  marrow.  "  What  manner  of  woman 
could  it  be  that  would  greet  the  approach 
of  a  man  by  thus  screaming  his  name  out 
through  the  dark  of  night  in  wild,  un- 
earthly tones  that  might  startle  a  child 
from  its  sleep  into  convulsions  at  half  a 
mile  ?  It  was  terrible.  Was  this  his 
maniac  wife  to  whom  this  friend  of  mine 
— member  of  my  respectable  and  dull  St. 
James's  Street  club  —  was  conducting 
me  in  the  midst  of  the  wild  Sussex 
moor?"  But  I  no  longer  felt  myself  to 
belong  to  earth,  still  less  to  have  any  re- 
lation with  conventional  society.  I  moved 
in  a  strange  wonderland  where  anything 
might  happen  except  the  expected. 

We  went  down  the  hill  through  a  brush- 
wood of  oak  and  birch  scrub  rising  to  the 
height  of  a  man.  Presently  a  glow,  like 
an  island  of  dim  light,  was  cast  on  the 
haze  lying  in  the  vale  below  us.  The 
smell  of  wood-smoke  came  to  us.  Big 
dark  shapes,  here  and  there  lit  by  a  ruddy 
flare  from  a  fire  in  the  open,  loomed  up 
through  the  night ;  a  great  dog  came  out 
at  a  gallop  and  jumped  joyfully  at  my 


Ibis  " place  in  tbe  Country"        19 

friend,  interrupting  this  greeting  to  throw 
me  a  growl  in  the  intervals.  We  came 
within  the  circle  of  light,  in  the  presence 
of  two  vans  and  a  tent.  A  man  was  by 
the  fire,  tending  it.  Down  the  stair  of 
the  bigger  van  came  a  woman  with  a 
quick,  young  step.  She  stopped  short  a 
moment,  when  about  to  greet  my  com- 
panion, as  she  saw  that  he  was  not  alone. 
"  I  have  brought  a  friend  to  stay  with 
us  a  day  or  two  Gracia,"  he  said  ;  and  I 
hope  I  bowed.  I  do  not  know  what  I 
said.  I  trust  that  by  the  training  of  years 
I  behaved  with  decent  grace,  for  all  power 
of  acting  on  a  reasoned  motive  went  from 
me  when  the  full  light  of  the  lantern 
swinging  at  the  van's  door  fell  on  the 
woman's  face. 


CHAPTER  III 

VENUS    OF    THE    VAN 

SHE  was  the  most  beautiful  woman  I 
had  ever  seen.  To  say  that  is  not  to  say 
nearly  enough  to  express  the  impression 
that  she  made  on  me,  not  only  then,  but 
since  and  always.  She  was  not  only  the 
most  beautiful  woman  I  ever  had  seen, 
but  she  was  quite  in  a  different  class  of 
beauty  from  every  other.  It  was  a  differ- 
ence of  kind,  almost  more  than  degree. 
It  was  a  revelation  to  me  that  the  human 
face  could  be  so  beautiful.  The  form 
of  the  face  was  Grecian.  There  was  that 
straight  continuance  of  the  line  of  the 
forehead  to  form  the  line  of  the  nose  that 
is  so  characteristic  of  the  Grecian  profile 
as  we  see  it  expressed  in  the  best  sculp- 
tures. Over  and  over  again  I  have  noticed 
the  likeness  in  this  respect  of  the  facial 

20 


IDenus  of  tbe  IDan  21 

lines  of  the  woman  of  the  van  to  the  lines 
of  the  face  of  that  most  beautiful  work  of 
art  ever  seen  by  modern  men,  the  Hermes 
of  Praxiteles.  And  the  lower  part  of  the 
face  of  this  wonderful  creature  was  like 
that  of  the  Hermes  too,  which,  after  all, 
has  much  that  is  typical  of  feminine  facial 
beauty.  The  full  lips  with  their  charm- 
ing expression  of  pleasure  and  happiness 
were  the  same,  the  firm  and  softly  rounded 
contour  of  the  chin  and  cheeks  was  the 
same.  The  face  was  a  full,  soft,  perfect 
oval  in  its  form.  The  differences  from 
the  type  of  the  Hermes  seemed  to  be, 
in  the  first  place,  that  this  was  a  woman 
of  the  dark  type,  of  the  Spanish  color- 
ing such  as  Velasquez  paints  it.  It 
is  likely,  indeed,  that  the  model,  or  the 
models,  from  which  the  Hermes  was  made 
were  dark ;  but,  for  all  that,  the  face  in  its 
marble  purity,  as  we  see  it,  gives  the  im- 
pression of  the  portrait  of  a  fair  blonde 
youth.  That,  at  least,  is  how  it  appeals 
to  me.  So  there  was  this  difference,  or 
imagined  difference,  between  the  face  of 
the  living  woman  and  the  face  of  the  mar- 


22  IDenus  of  tbe  IDan 

ble  youth,  in  the  first  place  ;  and  then  the 
hair  on  the  woman's  brow  grew  and  clus- 
tered low  down  with  its  dark  curls,  giving 
to  the  wide  forehead  an  impression  of 
even  greater  width  than  it  had.  And 
finally  the  eyes,  rather  deep  set  under 
the  brows,  were  finer  than  those  in  the 
statue.  They  were  larger,  wide-open 
eyes,  of  a  wonderful  violet  depth  of  color- 
ing, and  shaded  with  long  dark  lashes 
curving  upwards  and  adding  to  their 
mystery  and  beauty. 

Never  have  I  beheld  another  such  face, 
and  never  shall.  One  of  the  greatest 
charms  that  it  had  was  its  look  of  perfect 
content  and  happiness.  That  of  course 
implies,  of  necessity,  the  look  of  perfect 
health.  The  color  and  form  of  the  woman 
implied  that  also.  Her  height  was  me- 
dium ;  small  by  the  standard  of  the  young 
woman  of  modern  days ;  perhaps  five  feet 
and  a  half  at  most.  For  the  modern 
ideal  of  beauty  her  figure  was  too  full, 
not  slim  enough,  of  rounded  contours.  It 
was  the  figure  of  a  woman  who  had  never 
known  the  constraint  of  the  tight  waist, 


IDenus  of  tbe  Dan  23 

and  conformed  in  this  again  to  the  classic 
Grecian  type.  Her  head  was  without 
other  covering  than  the  heavy  coils  of  her 
rich  dark  hair;  her  bo  dice  of  dark  purplish 
red,  cut  low  and  adorned  with  some  golden 
open  work,  gave  a  sight  of  a  beautifully 
formed  and  much  sunburnt  neck  and 
chest ;  her  petticoat  was  of  some  coarse 
stuff  of  grayish  blue,  and  her  feet  were 
clad  in  those  shapeless  slippers  of  canvas, 
with  rope-work  soles,  that  are  commonly 
worn  in  the  northern  parts  of  Spain.  Her 
hands  were  as  brown  as  if  they  had  been 
stained  with  walnut  juice,  but  so  small 
that,  as  George  Hood  told  me  afterwards, 
on  the  rare  occasions  that  he  had  bought 
gloves  for  her,  he  had  been  obliged  to 
buy  children's  sizes,  or  else  to  have  them 
specially  made. 

I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  I 
stared  like  a  fool,  and  a  rude  fool,  at  the 
wondrous  apparition  of  beauty  in  the  un- 
certain light  of  the  lamps  and  the  fire, 
for  I  can  recall  none  of  my  sensations 
until  I  was  aroused  from  a  state  of 
stupid  contemplation  by  Hood's  laugh 


24  IDenus  of  tbe  Wan 

reminding  me  that  I  was  being  introduced 
to  a  lady. 

Then  some  of  the  trite  words  that  suit 
the  occasion  came  to  my  mind,  and  I  was 
going  to  say  them  when  all  other  sound  or 
hope  of  hearing  was  drowned  in  that  shrill, 
cutting  "  Ge-orge  !  Ge-orge  !  "  that  I  had 
heard  before,  far  off,  but  now  heard  close 
at  hand  from  the  van  itself.  After  the 
screech  had  ceased  there  was  a  sound  like 
the  beating  of  great  wings,  as  if  it  had  left 
the  air  all  in  a  turmoil.  At  the  same  time, 
what  looked  like  a  white  ghost  showed  in 
the  dim  inside  of  the  van. 

"  Polchinello — quiet ! "  cried  the  woman 
of  the  van  in  the  tone  one  uses  to  chide  a 
dog.  She  spoke  with  the  accent  of  a 
Latin  tongue. 

"  Let  the  poor  thing  come  out,"  said 
Hood,  going  up  the  steps  of  the  van.  In 
a  moment  he  was  back  with  a  white  cocka- 
too of  immense  size  on  his  shoulder.  The 
bird  showed  its  pleasure  by  putting  up  and 
down  its  big  crest  of  orange  yellow,  rub- 
bing its  head  against  the  man's  cheek, 
picking  delicately  with  its  great  hooked 


Denus  of  tbe  Dan  25 

beak  at  a  hair  of  his  beard,  but  pulling  it 
only  in  the  gentlest  way  possible.  Each 
little  tug  was  a  caress. 

"That  is  what  it  is  that  was  calling?"  I 
said. 

"Yes,"  he  said.     "Did  you   think  "- 
the  woman  and  he  looked  at  one  another 
and  smiled ;  evidently  those  two   under- 
stood each  other — "  Did  you  think  it  was 
Gracia  ? " 

When  her  red  ripe  lips  parted  to  laugh 
over  the  even  white  teeth  she  was  more 
adorably  beautiful  than  ever. 

"  I  '11  show  you  round,"  Hood  said,  "  and 
then  we  '11  have  dinner.  You  won't  want 
to  do  much  dressing.  I  told  you  you 
would  n't  want  dress  clothes." 

It  was  the  only  thing  he  had  told  me, 
the  only  thing  he  did  tell  me,  by  way  of 
any  kind  of  explanation.  One  might  have 
thought  that  he  would  have  made  some 
apology,  even  a  humorous  one — might  have 
suggested  that  it  was  a  surprise  to  me  to 
find  his  "place  in  the  country"  just  what 
it  was.  But  it  did  not  occur  to  him  to  do 
this.  He  "  showed  me  round."  The 


26  IDenus  ot  tbe  tflan 

round  was  made  soon.  There  were  two 
vans,  rather  bigger  than  the  average  size 
that  gypsies  use.  There  was  a  big  open 
fire  of  sticks  on  the  ground,  and  a  stove  of 
some  sort  beside  it.  An  old  man  with  a 
white  beard,  aquiline  nose,  and  keen  black 
eyes  was  busied  about  the  stove  and  fire, 
cooking.  The  process  was  sensible  to  the 
nose,  more  clearly  than  to  the  eye  by  the 
flickering  light ;  and  the  tinkling  clatter  of 
platters  told  a  like  tale  to  the  ear,  as  the 
things  were  handed  out  from  the  van  by  a 
slip  of  a  youth  who  seemed  to  act  scullion 
to  the  old  man's  cook.  All  this  went  on 
to  leeward  of  the  van  I  had  seen  first,  from 
which  the  beautiful  woman  had  come,  and 
the  cockatoo.  An  occasional  snort  or  a 
stamp  showed  that  there  were  horses  pas- 
turing close  by. 

I  took  my  friend  by  the  sleeve,  away 
from  the  hearing  of  the  man  cooking. 

"  Who  is  she  ?  "  I  asked,  jerking  a  thumb 
towards  the  first  van. 

"  She  ! "  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  surprise 
that  I  should  ask  the  question.  "  That 's 
my  wife." 


IDenus  of  tbe  Dan  27 

I  was  puzzled  about  the  right  dress  for 
this  dinner.  My  bedroom  was  a  part  of 
the  second  van,  partitioned  off  from  the 
part  where  the  plates  and  things  were 
kept.  One  could  just  stand  upright. 
The  berth  was  a  shelf  along  the  wall  of 
the  van.  I  put  on  a  smoking  suit  of 
rather  a  fine  design  and  color,  and  went 
round  to  the  first  van,  beside  which  we 
were  to  dine. 

A  wood  table  was  set  out  on  the  grass 
beside  the  van.  The  van  door  was  shut, 
and  I  had  time  to  look  at  the  preparations 
for  dinner  without  host  or  hostess  seeing 
me.  The  table  was  quite  clean,  and  there 
were  knives  and  forks  laid  on  it — no 
table-cloth.  There  were  no  plates  yet, 
but  three  wicker  chairs  set  about  showed 
the  number  of  the  party  expected.  A 
lantern,  swung  from  a  birch-bough  that 
reached  over  the  table,  lighted  it  all ;  and 
the  night  was  so  still  that  the  lantern, 
thus  hung,  hardly  moved. 

The  van  door  opened,  and  from  it 
came,  first,  the  white  figure  of  the  cocka- 
too, helping  itself  down  the  van  steps  with 


28  Menus  of  tbe  Dan 

beak  and  feet.  Then  it  came  over  the 
grass,  with  ungainly  movements,  towards 
the  table.  There  was  a  stick,  a  branch  of 
a  tree  cut  so  that  two  horizontal  side 
shoots  stood  out  at  the  top,  planted  into 
the  ground  at  what  you  might,  if  you 
like,  call  the  head  of  the  table,  and  up 
this  stick  the  creature  climbed,  hand  over 
hand,  and  beak  over  both,  until  it  had 
gained  the  top,  There  it  stayed,  perched 
on  the  horizontal,  saying  nothing  but  con- 
tinually bowing  and  elevating  and  depress- 
ing its  fine  crest  as  if  it  were  in  agitation 
at  my  unfamiliar  presence. 

Presently  the  beautiful  woman  came 
from  the  van  door.  My  friend  followed, 
and  I  saw  that  he  was  dressed  for  dinner  ; 
that  is  to  say  that,  instead  of  the  usual 
dress  of  convention,  he  had  a  gray  flannel 
shirt,  with  collar  of  the  same,  rather  open 
at  the  neck,  and  a  suit  of  rough  tweeds. 

"  Polchinello  can't  make  out  your  smok- 
ing suit.  Never  saw  anything  so  smart 
before,"  he  said  with  a  laugh  at  the  bird, 
who  still  kept  coquetting  and  curtseying 
at  me.  "  Tio  !  Ready  for  dinner  !" 


IDenus  of  tbe  Dan  29 

I  thought  his  "  Tio  "  was  a  term  of  en- 
dearment for  the  bird,  but  it  seemed  that 
it  was  meant  for  the  old  man  with  the 
bird-like  face,  who  came  now  from  the 
murky  glow  about  the  fire  with  a  great 
bowl  that  smoked  and  gave  a  savory  odor. 
The  slouchy  youth  brought  soup  plates 
and  banged  each  down  on  the  table  with 
a  clatter  that  sent  the  wings  of  the  cocka- 
too up  in  alarm,  responsive  to  each  bang. 

"  Soup  ? "  said  Hood,  when  we  had 
taken  our  places. 

"  This  is  excellent.  I  never  tasted  bet- 
ter." I  said,  referring  to  the  soup. 

"Do  you  know  what  it  is?"  Hood 
asked  me. 

"  Hare  ?     But  no — what  is  it  ?" 

"  Squirrel.  It  is  better  than  hare,  is  n't 
it?" 

"Yes,"  I  said.     "I  think  it  is." 

Trout  followed  as  the  next  course. 
"  Tio,  you  Ve  been  tickling  again."  Hood 
said  severely.  "  I  told  you  I  would  n't 
have  the  trout  taken  out  unless  you 
caught  them  fairly."  Tio  did  not  trouble 
to  answer,  but  chuckled  with  a  kind  of 


30  Denus  of  tbe  Dan 

grim  humor.  A  chicken  and  a  landrail 
on  the  same  dish  came  then,  and  a  very 
good  omelet,  a  little  more  savory  of  the 
garlic  than  I  wanted,  finished  the  dinner. 
Then  there  were  apples  and  coffee — very 
good  coffee. 

Perhaps  I  was  too  frank  in  showing 
that  the  dinner  was  beyond  my  expecta- 
tion, for  the  host  said  to  my  hostess,  "He 
thought  he  'd  get  nothing  to  eat  but  hedge- 
hog and  badger." 

"Have  your  ever  eaten  them?"  I 
asked  him. 

"  Badger  often  ;  and  it 's  good,"  he  said, 
"but  not  hedgehog.  I  never  could  man- 
age hedgehog.  It 's  always  seemed  a 
little  too  '  sniffy  '  for  me." 

"  Odoriferous?" 

He  nodded.  "Gracia's  eaten  it  often 
though.  Have  n't  you  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  often,"  she  said. 

"  Do  they  really  cook  it  in  a  ball  of 
clay?  That's  how  I  've  been  told." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  that 's  the  best  way. 
I  never  have  it  when  we  're  by  ourselves 
though." 


IDenus  of  tbe  IDan  31 

"  Is  it  a  company  dish  ?  " 

"  Gracia  gets  it  when  she  goes  into 
company.  That 's  what  she  means,"  Hood 
said.  "  When  she  goes  down  to  the  For- 
est, and  dines  with  her  friends  there,  she 
often  has  hedgehog." 

"To  the  Forest?"  I  asked,  puzzled. 

"  That 's  the  New  Forest.  We  always 
talk  of  it  like  that." 

"  And  the  hedgehogs  are  always  cooked 
like  that — in  a  clay  ball  ?  "  I  asked  Gracia. 

"  Yes,  but  I  always  make  them  kill 
them  first,  if  I  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  cooking.  I  think  it  's  cruel  not  to," 
she  said. 

"  Not  to  ?  Not  to  what  ?  To  kill  them 
first  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  they  some- 
times cook  them  alive  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  that  is  the  regular  way — 
always." 

Tio  and  the  youth  came  and  joined  us, 
now  that  dinner  was  over.  As  waiters 
their  costume  was  picturesque.  Both 
wore  trousers  spreading  out  bell-wise, 
rather  in  the  nautical  style,  over  the  feet, 
but  much  tighter  in  the  leg  than  sailors 


32  IDenus  of  tbe  Dan 

wear  them ;  cut-away  coats,  and  very 
brightly  colored,  long  skirted  waistcoats. 
The  most  striking  feature  of  both  cos- 
tumes were  the  buttons  of  the  coat  and 
waistcoat.  In  the  case  of  the  youth  they 
were  of  mother-of-pearl,  very  large  indeed 
on  the  coat,  smaller  on  the  waistcoat.  The 
old  man's  coat  had  buttons  that  seemed 
to  be  made  of  some  very  large  silver  coins. 
Looking  at  them  closely,  by  such  light  as 
the  swinging  lantern  gave,  while  he  sat  up 
by  the  table,  I  could  see  that  they  were  of 
some  foreign  country's  mint.  The  but- 
tons of  his  waistcoat  were  smaller,  not 
more  than  a  third  the  size  of  the  coat  but- 
tons, but  to  my  astonishment  they  were 
of  gold.  He  must  have  carried  some 
value  in  his  buttons. 

After  we  had  talked  and  smoked  for  a 
while,  Gracia  said  "  Good-night "  and  went 
up  into  her  van,  taking  with  her  Polchi- 
nello,  the  cockatoo ;  and  Tio  and  the 
youth  retired  to  the  region  of  the  other 
van  and  of  the  fire  to  put  things  in  order 
for  the  night.  George  Hood  and  I  were 
by  ourselves. 


IDenus  of  tbe  Iflan  33 

"  '  Tio '  means  *  uncle '  in  Spanish,  as  I 
dare  say  you  know,"  he  said.  "  I  call  him 
that  because  Gracia  has  always  called  him 
so.  He  is  not  her  uncle  really.  I  don't 
suppose  he  is  any  relation  to  her  at  all.  I 
met  these  people  in  Spain  when  I  was  fish- 
ing— there  are  some  really  good  trout  in 
some  of  the  rivers  of  northern  Spain — 
they  are  Spanish  gypsies — that  is  to  say 
Tio  and  the  boy  are.  Gracia — no  one 
knows  what  she  is.  She  was  a  kidnapped 
child — that  is  certain,  I  think.  Tio  ad- 
mitted that  much  to  me ;  but  he  does  not 
know  whom  she  was  taken  from.  He  got 
her  in  exchange  for  a  mule.  He  and  his 
wife  brought  her  up.  But  his  wife  is 
dead.  She  died  soon  after  I  met  them." 


CHAPTER  IV 

BREAKFAST 

IN  the  morning  I  awoke  to  the  sounds 
of  a  voice  that  I  had  not  heard  the  night 
before.  I  looked  out  and  saw  my  host, 
already  dressed,  playing  pitch  and  toss 
with  a  brown  baby  of  some  eighteen 
months,  that  was  screaming  with  joy  at 
each  toss  and  each  catching. 

"  Your  property  ?  "  I  asked  Hood,  speak- 
ing of  the  child. 

"  I  have  a  half  share  in  him.  Perhaps 
I  ought  to  say  a  quarter  only,  and  Gracia 
three  fourths.  He  is  a  fractional  person." 

"  Never  fractious  ?  " 

"  Never  known  to  be.  That  is  a  reason 
the  more  for  saying  he  is  three  fourths 
Gracia  and  only  one  fourth  me." 

It  seemed  a  good  reason  for  his  adjust- 
ment of  the  fractions.  The  impress  of  a 

34 


Breakfast  35 

perfectly  balanced  nature  and  temper  was 
on  the  mother's  face.  The  face  would 
have  failed,  I  suppose,  in  some  point  of 
perfect  beauty  had  it  not  been  so ;  and 
when  I  saw  that  wonderful  face  again  in 
the  full  light  of  the  morning  under  which 
we  breakfasted,  I  set  myself  with  deliber- 
ate criticism  the  task  of  trying  to  find  a 
line  that  could  be  changed  to  add  to  its  per- 
fection— but  in  vain. 

Breakfast  was  like  dinner,  in  the  suffi- 
ciency and  goodness  of  the  food,  such  as 
trout  and  eggs,  with  coffee  that  Gracia 
made  by  a  spirit  lamp  on  the  table.  The 
breeze  was  so  soft  that,  as  soon  as  Hood 
had  sheltered  the  blue  flame  by  putting 
up  a  book  for  a  screen,  it  burned  quite 
steadily.  I  looked  at  the  title  of  the  book, 
which  he  had  fetched  from  the  van.  It 
was  an  Epictetus. 

Next  to  her  bewildering  beauty,  the 
quality  that  most  struck  me  in  Gracia  was 
her  repose. 

"  Do  you  read  Epictetus  ? "  I  asked. 
She  shook  her  head,  smiling. 

Hood  smiled  too.     "  Gracia,"  he  said, 


36  JSreafefast 

"  is  like  old  Lord  F .  Some  one  asked 

him  whether  he  had  read  some  book  or 
other,  and  he  answered,  '  I  don't  read 
books.' " 

"  But  I  like  them  when  you  read  them 
to  me,"  she  said. 

"Yes  —  some  books,"  he  admitted. 
"  Provided  they  are  poetry,  and  just  of  the 
kind  you  like,  you  like  them.  Do  you 
know  what  Gracia's  favorite  book  is?"  he 
asked,  turning  to  me.  "  Why,  Robert 
Bridges's  Shorter  Poems.  It  shows  a 
pretty  cultured  taste,  does  it  not  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  know  them,"  I  had  to 
confess. 

"  Not  know  them  !  I  envy  you.  You 
can't  match  his  landscape  description  for 
truth  and  beauty  together.  How  is  this 
for  a  description  of  the  Downs  : 

O  bold  majestic  downs,  smooth,  fair,  and  lonely: 
O  still  solitude,  only  matched  in  the  skies; 

Perilous  in  steep  places, 

Soft  in  the  level  races, 
Where  sweeping  in  phantom  silence  the  cloudland 

flies; 
With  lovely  undulation  of  fall  and  rise: 


JSreafefast  37 

Entrenched  with  thickets  thorned, 
By  delicate  miniature  dainty  flowers  adorned! 

He  did  n't  want  '  dainty '  as  well  as  '  deli- 
cate '  in  that  last  line,  but  is  not  the  whole 
thing  good  ? 

"  And  this  again  : 

The  cliff-top  has  a  carpet 

Of  lilac,  gold,  and  green; 
The  blue  sky  bounds  the  ocean, 

The  white  clouds  scud  between; 

A  flock  of  gulls  are  wheeling 
And  wailing  round  my  seat; 

Above  my  head  the  heaven, 
The  sea  beneath  my  feet. 

Nothing  in  it,  of  course,"  he  commented, 
"but  it  makes  you  see  it  all." 

"  It 's  like  Tio's  playing  when  you  say 
poetry  like  that,"  Gracia  said. 

"  Tio  is  a  fiddler,"  Hood  explained. 
"  We  must  have  a  concert  to-night." 

Epictetus  had  done  his  function  as  a 
wind  shield  for  the  flame,  which  was  let 
go  out.  "  I  like  this  old  fellow,"  Hood 
said,  taking  up  the  volume  and  turning 


38  Breafcfast 

the  pages.  "  His  ideas  of  the  kinship  of 
God  and  man  are  wonderful  for  the  time 
when  he  lived.  I  like  this,  too,  in  his 
argument  that,  because  man  is  akin  to 
God,  it  might  be  better  for  him  to  kill 
himself  to  be  free  of  the  bonds  of  the  body 
and  enjoy  the  kinship  more  fully.  4  Here,' 
he  says — i.  e.,  on  earth — '  there  are  rob- 
bers, thieves,  and  Courts  of  Justice.'  I 
like  the  conjunction  of  the  thieves  and 
Courts  of  Justice  as  equal  evils." 

I  glanced  at  Gracia.  During  the  recital 
of  the  verses  her  eyes  had  sparkled,  her 
lips  had  smiled,  all  her  face  was  lit  with 
appreciation.  But  the  prose  did  not  touch 
her.  Probably  she  did  not  understand  it, 
and  what  surprised  me  was  that  her  brow 
showed  no  sign  of  thought  or  of  effort  to 
catch  the  meaning.  She  seemed  just  to 
let  it  go  by  unheeded.  In  the  course 
of  the  morning  I  had  some  talk  with  her 
alone,  while  Hood  at  a  little  distance 
played  with  the  child.  I  wondered  that 
she  asked  me  nothing  about  my  meeting 
her  husband  and  about  our  London  life  in 
general.  She  asked  few  questions  on  any 


JSreafefast  39 

subject,  though  she  would  talk  readily 
enough  on  a  topic  of  her  own  life  that  I 
started.  She  struck  me  at  once  as  notably 
free  from  that  attractive  weakness  of  her 
sex — curiosity. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    PHILOSOPHIC    MUSE 

"  COME  for  a  little  stroll  with  me  and 
baby  ;  and  I  am  going  to  teach  you  a  new 
sensation,"  George  Hood  said.  "  It  is 
a  sensation  any  one  may  enjoy  on  a  fine 
day  in  summer — in  winter  too,  for  that 
matter,  if  it  is  n't  so  cold  that  the  cold 
overpowers  all  the  other  sensations.  It 
is  very  cheap,  it  is  very  pleasant,  and  it 
is  unlike  any  other  sensation  in  the 
world." 

This  was  promising  much.  "  Let  us 
lie  down  here,"  he  said,  when  we  came  to 
a  nice  mossy  place  beside  the  stream. 
"  No,  not  like  that,"  he  objected,  as  I  re- 
clined on  one  elbow — "  like  this,  flat  on 
your  back." 

So,  flat  on  the  back,  with  head  cushioned 
on  the  heather ! 

40 


TEbe  ipbtlosopbic  flDuse  41 

Then  he  said  :  "  Look  up  now  into  the 
sky.  Look  at  the  fleecy  little  clouds  that 
you  can  see,  and  yet  you  can  hardly  see, 
going  over  the  sky  at  any  height  you  like 
to  say — no  one  can  check  your  estimate — 
now  tell  me  what  you  feel." 

"  I  can't,"  I  said. 

"  No,"  with  a  chuckle,  "  I  knew  you 
would  n't  be  able  to  tell  me.  It  is  unlike 
anything  else  in  the  world.  It  is  inde- 
scribable." 

We  lay  there  awhile,  side  by  side,  gaz- 
ing up  into  the  fathomless  blue  overhead. 
There  was  a  kind  of  vertigo,  of  the  myste- 
rious delightful  sensation  of  well-being 
and  pleasant  fancy  that  opium  gives. 
The  process  that  went  on  in  the  brain 
was  hardly  an  intellectual  one  of  consecu- 
tive thought — it  was  rather  a  succession 
of  sensations,  all  gently  pleasurable.  It 
was  the  most  nerve-soothing  state  I  have 
known. 

One  tired  even  of  this  after  awhile,  or 
perhaps  the  truth  is  that  one  grew  afraid 
of  it,  afraid  of  its  effect  on  the  brain,  as  of 
the  influence  of  a  narcotic.  I  turned  on 


42  Ube  pbilosopbic 

my  side  and  took  shorter  views  —  of  a 
spider  hunting  through  the  heather. 

"  I  want  a  motif  for  a  new  book,"  I 
said.  "  Can  you  give  me  one  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  he.  "  I  will  give  you  the 
elements  of  a  very  excellent  book.  Its 
theme  will  be  human  nature,  and  human 
nature  perhaps  as  concerned  more  spe- 
cially with  its  views  of  a  spiritual  life,  a 
hereafter,  a  religion — however  you  like  to 
call  it.  The  personce  dramatis  that  you 
must  have  are  chiefly  these — a  parson  of 
orthodoxy,  an  agnostic  doctor,  and  a  rus- 
tic. The  parson  of  orthodoxy  will  be  of  the 
kind  that  believes  in  praying  for  rain,  and 
not  only  for  rain  generally  but,  as  the 
Welsh  divine  is  said  to  have  prayed  in 
addition,  'and  not,  O  Lord,  rain  of  that 
lashing  kind  that  comes  down  and  floods 
the  fields  in  torrents  and  rushes  off  again 
without  doing  a  mite  of  good ;  but  the 
soft,  gentle,  penetrating  rain  that  we  see 
beginning  about  five  o  'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, and  looks  as  if  it  were  going  on  all 
night' — explaining  to  the  Almighty,  do 
you  see  ?  the  sort  of  thing  that  was 


pbilosopblc  flDuse  43 

wanted,  so  that  He  could  have  no  possi- 
ble excuse  for  making  a  mistake.  That  is 
the  sort  of  parson.  Well,  such  a  man  as 
this  will  be  genuinely  surprised,  he  will  be 
altogether  dumfounded  to  see  a  man  of 
agnostic  notions,  as  I  would  have  your 
doctor  be,  going  about  among  the  poor  of 
his  parish,  doing  good  gratis,  sitting  up  all 
night  to  help  an  old  man  or  old  woman  in 
suffering  and  actually  reading  the  Bible — 
yes,  reading  the  Bible  actually — to  our 
old  rustic  on  his  death-bed.  There  has 
got  to  be  no  mistake,  mind  you,  about  the 
immense,  the  unbounded  comfort  that  the 
rustic  has  on  his  death-bed,  and  has  had 
all  his  life  through,  out  of  his  utter  simple 
faith  in  the  Scripture  and  all  the  Bible 
promises.  There  must  be  no  mistake 
about  that.  Of  course  you  can  bring  him 
in  as  a  bit  of  relief,  as  something  of  a  comic 
character,  besides.  These  fellows  cannot 
fail  to  be  humorous  if  only  you  can  succeed 
in  making  them  natural. 

"  So,  of  course  the  parson  will  be  as- 
tounded yet  more  by  hearing  the  doctor 
thus  reading  the  Bible  ;  but  naturally  he 


44  ftbe  IPbilosopbic  nDuse 

will  be  very  much  shocked  too.  He  will 
take — he  will  even  venture  to  take — the 
doctor  to  task  for  it  afterwards,  asking 
him  how  he,  the  unbeliever,  can  dare,  can 
presume,  can  go  so  near  the  verge  of 
blasphemy  as  to  read  these  sacred  words 
in  the  ear  of  a  dying  believer.  And  that, 
of  course,  pulls  up  the  flood-gates  of  the 
doctor's  eloquence  on  this  hardest  of  all 
the  questions  that  is  set  before  the  honest 
man,  the  seeker  for  truth,  of  to-day,  who 
cannot  accept  the  faith  of  the  orthodox 
Christian,  yet  sees  the  immense  comfort 
(comfort  that  nothing  but  religious  faith 
of  some  sort,  and  faith,  a  convinced  faith 
in  a  hereafter)  can  bring  to  humanity — 
the  question,  namely,  whether  nothing  is 
to  be  put  into  comparison  with  truth, 
whether  it  is  truth  that  it  behoves  him 
to  go  forth  into  the  desert  of  delusion 
(speaking  of  truth  and  delusion  as  he 
conceives  them,  of  course)  and  proclaim, 
breaking  down  the  images,  like  an  Icono- 
clast, though  knowing  he  has  nothing  to 
put  on  their  empty  pedestals,  or  whether 
he  should  leave  men  in  their  infinitely 


ttbe  pbilosopbic  /IDuse  45 

consoling  delusions  with  their  idols  that 
are  so  dear  and  precious.  Oh,  it  is  a  ter- 
rible problem,"  he  said,  and  sighed  as  one 
who  feels  the  weight  of  a  great  burden. 

"Is  it  absolutely  sure,"  I  asked,  "  that 
there  is  nothing  that  can  be  put  on  the 
pedestals  in  the  place  of  these  idols  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  he  replied  sadly.  "  Noth- 
ing that  I  can  see.  Nothing,  nothing, 
that  is  to  say,  that  appeals  to  me  as  in  the 
least  degree  satisfying.  To  some,  as  it 
appears,  it  does  seem  more  or  less  satis- 
factory. Just  read  this,  by-the-bye."  He 
took  from  the  heather,  where  he  had  laid 
it,  as  he  spoke,  a  volume  of  Lectures  and 
Essays  by  W.  K.  Clifford.  "Look  at 
this,  at  the  end  of  his  wonderfully  good 
essay,  as  it  seems  to  me,  on  '  Body  and 
Mind  ' — characteristic  of  the  man,  by  the 
way,  the  order  in  which  he  puts  the  two, 
body  first,  mind  next,  in  the  order  of  evo- 
lution. He  has  come  practically  to  this 
conclusion,  from  the  consideration  of  the 
correlative  nature  of  mind  and  matter  (or, 
as  he  would  say,  matter  and  mind)  that 
when  the  man  dies  and  the  nerves  no 


46  Zlbe  ipbilosopbic  flDuse 

longer  bring  messages  to  the  '  gray  mat- 
ter '  of  the  brain  and  conduct  them  down 
again,  all  is  annihilated.  That  is  where  I 
would  have  you  begin." 

He  handed  me  the  book,  and,  breaking 
off  a  bit  of  bracken,  began  thoughtfully 
tickling  with  it  the  soles  of  the  baby's 
feet.  I  read  on  to  the  end  of  the  interest- 
ing chapter  he  had  opened  for  me,  while 
the  baby  kept  up  an  accompaniment  of 
gurgling  appreciations  and  protests,  as  it 
kicked  its  feet  up  away  from  the  tickling. 
When  I  laid  the  book  down  Hood  began 
to  discuss  the  argument  with  a  facility 
that  showed  his  perfect  recollection  of 
it: 

"  The  gist  of  what  he  says,  as  it  touches 
our  doctor's  argument,  is  just  this,  that  he 
offers  us  what  is  called  the  religion  of 
humanity  as  a  substitute  for  those  dear 
comforting  idols  that  he  has  knocked  from 
their  pedestals,  and  I  cannot  say  that  I  find 
the  substitute  satisfying  for  me  ;  I  do  not 
believe  it  can  be  a  substitute  satisfying 
for  you,  and  I  am  absolutely,  beyond  all 
reach  of  argument,  sure  that  it  never,  or 


iPbilosopbic  flDuse  47 

not  for  very  many  generations,  can  be  a 
satisfying  substitute  for  the  poor  rustic 
to  whom  we  have  seen  our  doctor  reading 
the  words  of  comfort,  in  which  he  has  not 
a  shred  of  belief,  at  the  death-bed.  That 
is  the  trouble  of  the  whole  matter." 

I  thought  much  about  what  he  said 
afterwards,  but  at  the  time  I  put  it  by  in 
my  mind  for  later  consideration,  and  said  : 
"  Yes,  you  have  given  me  three  very  good 
characters  maybe,  and  an  interesting  situ- 
ation and  discussion,  but  that  will  fill  but 
a  very  little  corner  of  the  canvas  of  a  life 
picture." 

"  Yes,"  he  admitted,  "  that  is  true.  I 
will  suggest  some  others.  I  will  suggest 
a  group  of  young  men.  We  will  put  them 
at  Oxford.  I  will  suggest  one  that  shall 
have  all  the  receptive  faculty  very  highly 
developed.  He  will  be  the  one  that  will 
take  all  the  honors  in  the  schools ;  he  will 
be  in  after  years  the  statesman,  the  cham- 
pion of  causes,  impressing  because  im- 
pressed. I  will  put  him  at  the  highest 
level  of  that  class  of  mind,  if  you  like.  I  will 
make  him  a  Gladstone.  Then  I  will  have 


48  Gbe  pbilosopbic  /iDuse 

another,  an  able  fellow,  of  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent class  of  mind,  a  critic,  a  self-critic, 
an  analyzer,  of  the  philosophic  type  of 
mind.  He  will  probe  deeper  beneath  the 
surface  of  things  than  the  other.  He 
will  not  be  a  champion,  an  enthusiast. 
He  will  be  of  colder  nature,  a  doubter. 
He  will  have  no  success,  no  worldly  suc- 
cess ;  but  he  will  cherish  a  secret  scorn  of 
the  success  of  the  other,  of  the  objects  in 
which  his  interests  and  his  enthusiasm  are 
placed.  If  he  dared  to  criticise  the  former 
at  the  top  of  his  success  he  would  be 
jeered  for  his  presumption  and  folly  at 
criticising  this  champion.  Yet  perhaps 
he  would  be  right  and  the  more  right  of 
the  two ;  but  he  would  not  be  in  touch, 
he  would  be  out  of  touch  with,  perhaps  he 
would  be  ashamed  of,  the  tendencies  of 
his  age." 

"  I  suppose  you  know,"  I  said,  "  whom 
you  have  taken  as  the  model  for  your 
hero — both  for  this  hero,  and  also  for  the 
other,  your  doctor?  It  is  that  which  has 
made  all  you  have  said  so  interesting  to 
me." 


jpbilosopbic  flDuse  49 

"  The  model  ?  No.  No  particular 
model." 

"  The  fact  that  you  do  not  recognize 
the  model,"  I  said,  "  makes  it  the  more 
interesting  still.  The  hero  in  both  cases 
is  yourself.  Unconsciously  you  have  given 
each  of  them  parts  of  your  own  mental 
likeness." 

"  Which  only  shows,"  he  said,  laughing, 
"if  it  is  so — which  I  don't  for  a  moment 
believe  —  what  a  bad  novelist  I  should 
make,  what  a  bad  artist  I  must  be.  I  can- 
not lose  myself  in  my  creations." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    DAEMON 

EVERY  now  and  then  the  baby,  crawl- 
ing over  the  mossy  carpet  that  the  per- 
petual sprinkling  of  the  water  from  the 
little  fall  had  nourished  to  a  vivid  emerald 
green,  wandered  perilously  near  the  verge 
of  the  low  cliff,  beneath  which  lay  the  pool 
below  the  fall.  On  such  occasions  Hood 
would  go  on  hands  and  knees,  after  the 
child,  stretch  out  a  hand  and  draw  it 
back  by  the  ankle  from  the  dangerous 
abyss  without  the  slightest  interruption  of 
his  dissertation.  A  strange  scene  this — of 
my  friend  of  the  respectable  London  club 
uttering  his  philosophies,  his  baby,  in 
brown  and  unshamed  nudity,  crawling 
over  the  moss ;  below,  the  fall  of  the 
water  glancing  white  foam  over  amber 
depths  and  prattling  a  constant  accom- 
50 


Zlbe  Daemon  51 

paniment ;  around,  the  white  -  stemmed 
birches  with  their  delicate  lace-work  foli- 
age, the  beauty  of  the  bracken,  the  heather 
and  the  gorse  ;  and  above,  the  blue  sky  of 
heaven  in  which  the  skylarks  were  carol- 
ling the  most  charming  music — a  scene 
that  one  hardly  believed  to  belong  to  the 
same  world  as  St.  James's  Street. 

"  He  presents  a  great  number  of  prob- 
lems," said  Hood,  as  we  watched  the  boy 
stretching  his  small,  round  limbs  over  the 
moss.  "  To  what  life  am  I  to  bring  him 
up — to  that  of  his  mother,  wandering  over 
the  face  of  the  earth  ?  The  common  sense 
of  the  world  would  say,  '  Do  something 
better  for  him  than  that ! '  Yet  how  can 
I  take  him  from  her?  And  as  for  that 
something  better,  what  is  it  ?  Is  it  better 
to  be  sitting  in  a  London  house  than 
here  ?  " 

To  feel  the  force  of  the  question  one 
must  realize  what  that  "  here  "  meant — 
the  rippling  brook,  the  beautiful  glade, 
the  blue  sky,  the  colors,  the  forms,  the 
brightness,  the  life  that  make  the  en- 
chantment of  God's  country.  Realizing 


52 

this,  it  was  obviously  absurd  to  put  it  into 
the  comparison  with  man's  town.  And 
yet,  in  the  very  midst  of  it  all  the  spirit  of 
convention  was  so  strong  upon  me  that  I 
had  to  answer  :  "  They  always  say  that  a 
man  's  the  happier  for  having  some  work 
to  do,  some  profession." 

"  They  do,"  he  asserted  with  grave 
irony.  "  What  is  there  that  they  will  not 
say  ?  After  all,  there  may  be  something 
in  what  they  say  in  regard  to  this.  The 
ordinary  man  of  to-day  may  have  from 
generations  of  toiling  ancestors  a  disposi- 
tion that  makes  work  a  necessity.  For  all 
that,  you  will  see  that  most  men  speak  of 
work  as  an  excellent  thing  for  others :  they 
do  their  best  to  escape  it  themselves.  If 
we  were  to  believe  the  Bible,  work  was 
given  to  man  as  a  curse,  not  a  blessing. 
People  forget  that." 

"  Or  is  this  a  possibility,  I  will  venture 
to  ask  you,"  I  said,  "  that  we  draw  too 
severe  a  line  between  work  and  play,  as  if 
the  one  was  pleasurable  and  the  other 
painful,  distinctly  ?  Surely  that  is  not 
quite  right.  William  Morris's  ideal  is  a 


Ube  Daemon  53 

moderate  number  of  hours  of  daily  work 
that  a  man  enjoys  in  the  doing.  When 
you  can  realize  the  fact  that  there  may  be 
and  ought  to  be  an  enjoyment  of  work, 
then  we  find  the  problem  much  simplified. 
And  it  is  a  grave  indictment  of  the  state 
of  our  society  that  we  should  feel  a  line 
of  acute  division  between  them." 

"  That  comes  to  what  Huxley  said,  that 
the  one  weak  point  in  the  teaching  of 
Christ  as  applied  to  modern  needs  is  that 
it  preaches  idleness  and  little  thrift. 

"  The  Bambino  at  least,  he  said,  look- 
ing towards  his  son,  has  no  legacy  from 
his  mother's  side,  I  expect,  of  a  strong  dis- 
position to  work.  She  does  not  worry 
herself  with  the  search  for  Truth  with  a 
big  T." 

"  That  may  be,"  I  said.  "In  any  case, 
it  seems  to  me  that  in  your  argument,  or 
Clifford's  argument,  which  you  quoted 
with  approval,  you  required  me  to  grant 
you  an  enormous  postulate,  namely,  that 
it  is  a  duty  to  seek  Truth  with  the  big 
T,  possibly  even  at  the  expense  of  happi- 
ness." 


54  Ube  Bazrnon 

"  You  are  perfectly  right,"  he  said  ;  "  it 
is  a  most  arbitrary  postulate.  Why  should 
we  grant  it  ?  And  yet  it  is  granted  al- 
most universally.  Another  postulate  that 
I  would  point  out  to  you,  equally  arbi- 
trary, is  that  we  should  study  and  do  that 
which  tends  to  the  preservation  of  the 
race.  Look  at  page  331  in  that  very  book 
of  Clifford's  Lectures  and  Essays  that  you 
are  holding.  Happiness  is  an  intelligible 
end  to  strive  for.  It  has  been  taken  far  too 
much  for  granted,  in  my  opinion,  that 
increase  of  knowledge  tends  to  increase  of 
happiness.  I  believe  that  to  have  been 
true  in  the  creation  up  to  a  certain  point 
— that  the  dog,  let  us  say,  has  more  hap- 
piness than  the  reptile — more  suscepti- 
bility of  pleasures — it  is  also  true,  more 
susceptibility  of  pains,  but  I  think  the 
pleasures  exceed  the  pains.  Evolution  is 
for  the  happiness  of  the  creature  up  to  a 
certain  point,  I  believe  ;  but  it  ceases  to 
be  for  the  happiness  of  the  creature  ex- 
actly as  soon  as  that  creature  begins  to  be 
man." 

"  Why  so  ?  "  I  asked  in  some  surprise. 


TIbe  2>*emon  55 

"  Because  exactly  at  that  point  the 
creature  begins  to  have  consciousness  that 
it  must  die,  that  its  time  is  short,  and  I  do 
say  that  this  source  of  unhappiness  (quite 
a  different  thing  from  what  is  called  '  the 
fear  of  death,'  I  would  have  you  under- 
stand) outweighs  by  far — at  all  events  in 
the  present  stage  of  evolution — the  su- 
perior happiness,  if  any,  derived  from 
higher  organization,  from  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  pleasure,  and  so  on." 

44  This  is  a  very  startling  and  gloomy 
theory,"  I  said. 

"  Quite  so,"  he  admitted,  "  but  if  we  are 
on  the  search  for  truth  we  must  not, 
according  to  our  postulate,  relinquish  a 
theory  on  any  ground  of  that  kind.  It  is 
man  that  has  invented  the  idea  of  time 
and  its  finiteness,  I  would  have  you  see. 
Dogs  and  the  lower  animals  live  in  a  vir- 
tual eternity.  There  is  wretchedness  in 
this  idea.  It  is  not  fear  of  death,  as  I 
said.  No  man,  speaking  generally,  fears 
to  die.  He  may  fear,  at  the  imminent  ap- 
proach of  sudden  or  violent  death — that  is 
not  the  way  it  comes  to  most  of  us — but 


56  TTbe  Htemon 

whether  a  man  be  a  Christian,  a  pagan,  or 
an  agnostic,  what  you  will,  at  the  end,  by 
a  natural  beneficent  process,  his  energies 
and  faculties  lose  so  much  of  their  grasp 
on  life  that  death  seems  but  the  right  and 
inevitable  further  step.  Now  and  again 
the  step  is  accompanied  with  pain,  but  the 
pain  is  physical,  not  mental ;  it  is  inciden- 
tal, not  essential.  But  if  death  is  to  mean 
annihilation,  it  is  natural  that,  when  we 
look  forward  to  it  while  our  faculties  are 
still  quick  and  active,  the  idea  should  re- 
volt us." 

"  Is  annihilation  your  idea?"  I  asked. 

"  At  all  events,"  he  replied,  "  it  is  an 
idea  against  which  I  strive  with  all  my 
heart  and  soul.  I  strive  to  catch  every 
fleeting  glimpse  of  a  light  that  may  mean 
something  better.  But  in  any  case  do  not 
let  us  deceive  ourselves.  If  annihilation 
is  not  to  be  our  lot,  then  it  must  be  a 
continuance  of  the  individual  conscious- 
ness, of  the  personal  memory.  The  ego  is 
bound  together  by  memory.  Passage 
through  Lethe  water  means  a  virtual  re- 
incarnation. If  we  lose  sight  of  that  fact 


Daemon  57 

we  deceive  ourselves,  and  if  we  begin  to 
question  it  we  begin  a  mere  battle  of 
words." 

"  Do  you  think  that  really  exhausts  all 
the  possibilities  ?"  I  questioned.  "  So  many 
people  seem  to  make  their  halt  somewhere 
between  these  two  opinions." 

"  It  does  not  prove  the  ground  to  be 
sound,  that  a  number  of  people  should 
stand  on  it,"  he  said.  "  However,  there  is 
yet  one  other  intelligible  alternative 
suggested  besides  annihilation  or  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  the  present  conscious- 
ness according  to  the  sense  that  we  usually 
apply  to  this ;  and  that  is  the  possibility 
that  when  we  die  we  become  part  of,  or 
rather  we  discover  that  we  here  have  been 
only  part  of,  a  larger  self.  It  is  possible — 
and  when  I  say  it  is  possible,  in  this  sense, 
I  mean  merely  that  it  is  not  contrary  to 
what  we  are  entitled  to  say  that  we  know 
scientifically — in  that  sense,  then,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  what  we  here  and  at  present  call 
'  self,'  we  shall  some  day  learn  to  be  only 
part  of  a  greater  '  self,'  of  a  conscious  and 
self-conscious  personality  that  may  have 


58  TTbe  Htemon 

attributes  at  which  we  cannot  guess,  but 
which  may  have,  among  those  attributes, 
the  memory  of  the  life  upon  earth  passed, 
for  a  while,  by  a  part  of  itself.  It  may  have 
a  memory  of  all  the  acts  done  here,  and  it 
is  not  impossible  (again  in  the  same  sense 
of  possible)  that  those  acts  may  have  a 
moral  meaning  and  significance  in  their 
effect  on  the  quality  of  the  larger  self.  A 
life  in  which  acts  have  been  done  habitually 
in  opposition  to  the  Divine  voice,  the  con- 
science, the  daemon,  the  inherited  moral 
sense,  or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it,  may 
possibly  (in  this  sense  of  possible)  degrade 
the  larger  self  into  which  the  smaller  self 
will  presently  become  re-absorbed.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  likely  that  the  larger 
self  would  be  able  to  take  broader,  proba- 
bly wiser  and  probably  more  charitable, 
views  of  the  part  of  itself  that  it  has  seen 
going  astray  on  the  earth — rather  as  a 
parent  looks  sadly  but  with  charity  on  his 
son's  misdemeanors  at  school.  And  while 
each  of  us  here  may  be  a  part  of  some  larger 
self  or  personality  (perhaps  more  than  one 
of  us — conceivably,  all  of  us — parts  of  the 


Daemon  59 

same  transcendental  personality)  it  is  not 
impossible  that  there  may  be  even  now 
other  parts  of  the  same  greater  self,  per- 
sonality, or  consciousness  passing  through 
some  form  of  existence  in  other  universes 
of  which  we  know  nothing,  each  of  these 
other  parts,  it  may  be,  deeming,  as  most  of 
us  do,  that  it  is  a  complete  and  separate 
self  or  personality  ;  or  again  it  may  be  that 
some  of  them  may  have  some  inkling,  it 
may  even  be  full  knowledge,  that  they  are 
but  off-shoots  or  colonies,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  larger  personality.  The  universal  per- 
sonality or  mind,  to  try  another  simile, 
may  be  as  the  wind  blowing  where  it 
listeth,  the  individual  personalities,  or 
brains  merely  like  the  ,/Eolian  lyres  on 
which  it  plays  certain  tunes  for  a  while ; 
and  now  and  again,  by  favor  of  happy  cir- 
cumstances, the  strings  are  so  tight  drawn 
that  they  catch  notes  of  a  rare  and  divine 
beauty,  though  as  a  rule  they  are  too 
dull  to  respond  to  this  divine  aura.  But, 
after  all,  it  may  be  argued  that  this 
comes  back  at  the  end,  when  death  breaks 
the  lyre,  to  something  so  like  personal 


60  Ube  Daemon 

annihilation  as  to  be  indistinguishable 
from  it.  That  is  the  trouble." 

"  And  you  've  put  the  Recording  Angel 
entirely  out  of  a  job,"  I  said  flippantly,  for 
my  head  had  begun  to  whirl  with  his  be- 
wildering speculations  before  he  had  trav- 
elled more  than  half  through  them. 

"  Recording  Angel ! "  he  answered, 
cheerfully  falling  in  with  my  own  humor. 
"  '  Which  I  don't  believe  there 's  no  such 
person.'  Recording  Angel,  indeed  !  Re- 
cording devil,  rather !  It  would  make  a 
devil  of  the  best  angel  that  ever  was  born 
to  go  on  with  that  kind  of  mean  work  for 
all  eternity — jotting  down  all  the  slips  of 
unfortunate  humanity. 

"  I  have  been  looking  up  the  Epictetus," 
he  said,  twisting  a  fetter  of  green  bracken 
round  the  baby's  ankle  that  should  delay 
it  just  long  enough  in  the  undoing  for  him 
to  find  the  place  in  the  book  "to  refresh 
my  mind  about  the  passage  I  was  speak- 
ing of  at  breakfast.  He  says  that  though 
from  God  come  the  seeds  of  all  that  is 
generated  on  the  earth,  yet  the  'greatest 
and  supreme  and  most  comprehensive 


TTbe  Htemon  61 

community'  is  that  which  is  '  composed  of 
God  and  man  ' — curious  notion  is  n't  it  ? 
Of  rational  beings,  he  says  that  they  only 
are  formed  to  have  communion  with  God, 
and  have  a  consequent  special  right  to  call 
themselves  sons  of  God,  and  points  out 
how  far  this  consideration  ought  to  put  us 
above  fear  of  mundane  troubles,  and  how 
far  more  valuable  it  is  than  kinship  with 
Caesar  or  any  of  the  great  ones  of  the 
earth. 

"  Marvellous  altogether,  is  it  not  ?  "  he 
said.  "  It  is  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  the 
first  book,  and  the  translation  is  by  George 
Long.  Of  course  there  is  some  of  the 
jargon  that  we  have  outlived  and  out- 
learned — 'conjoined  by  means  of  reason,' 
and  so  on  ;  but  the  conception  is  more  than 
a  jargon — the  whole  conception  of  God  as 
the  one  Father,  Maker  of  all,  the  '  Great 
Companion  '  that  Clifford  talks  about.  It 
is  a  more  liberal  conception  in  a  way  than 
the  modern  one,  which  is  held  most  liberal 
because  it  would  seem  to  extend  something 
of  the  communion  with  God  to  the  lower 
animals  too,  to  whom  Epictetus  does  not 


62  ZTbe 


deny  a  beginning  of  reason.  The  last 
sentence  of  the  passage,  '  Shall  not  this  re- 
lease us  from  sorrows  and  fears  ?  '  is  the 
keynote  of  all  that  ancient  philosophy,  and 
touches  that  which  is  most  valuable  in  it  — 
the  importance  that  it  assigns  to  tranquil- 
lity, self-control,  and  command  —  qualities 
more  difficult  for  the  Greek  and  Latin 
races  than  ours. 

"  He  is  wonderfully  modern,  this  ancient 
Epictetus  ;  and  he  has  some  splendid  bits. 
I  like  his  comparison  of  the  works  of 
Phidias  and  the  other  sculptors  with  the 
works  of  God.  He  allows  the  marble 
things  all  their  glory  —  only  he  goes  on  : 
4  But  the  works  of  God  have  power  of 
motion,  they  breathe,  they  have  the  faculty 
of  using  the  appearances  of  things,  and 
the  power  of  examining  them.  Being  the 
work  of  such  an  Artist,  do  you  dishonor 
Him?  And  what  shall  I  say,  not  only 
that  He  made  you,  but  also  entrusted  you 
to  yourself  ?  '  Epictetus  will  not  have  it  — 
that  old  pagan  —  that  the  Great  Artist  has 
put  His  work  into  the  world  without  a 
guide  to  show  its  feet  how  to  go.  For 


ZTbe  Daemon  63 

this  is  what  he  says,  after  talking  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  and  their  movements, 
and  so  on  :  '  "  But  I  cannot,"  the  man  may 
reply,  "  comprehend  all  these  things  at 
once." '  Epictetus  will  not  listen  to  this 
excuse  of  helplessness.  '  But  who  tells 
you,'  he  asks,  'that  you  have  equal 
power  with  Zeus  ?  Nevertheless  he  has 
placed  by  every  man  a  guardian,  every 
man's  Daemon,  to  whom  he  has  committed 
the  care  of  the  man,  a  guardian  who  never 
sleeps,  is  never  deceived.  For  to  what 
better  and  more  careful  guardian  could  he 
have  entrusted  each  of  us  ?  When  then 
you  have  shut  the  doors  and  made  dark- 
ness within,  remember  never  to  say  that 
you  are  alone,  for  you  are  not ;  but  God 
is  within,  and  your  Daemon  is  within,  and 
what  need  have  they  of  light  to  see  what 
you  are  doing  ? ' 

"You  will  not,  I  should  think,  want 
anything  nearer  the  Christian  idea  of 
conscience  than  this.  It  is  the  still,  small 
Voice,  absolutely.  Of  course  it  may  be 
said  by  those  who  argue  on  the  material- 
istic side,  that  we  of  the  modern  science 


64  TTbe  S)eemon 

have  explained  away  this  daemon  into 
something  quite  different.  He  has  become 
the  instinct  evolved  out  of  primordial 
matter  by  course  of  evolution,  and  by  us 
inherited  ready  made,  and  a  trouble  it  is 
no  doubt  that  the  daemon  which  tells  a 
Thug  to  go  out  and  strangle  a  man  is  just 
about  first  cousin  to  the  daemon  that  tells 
the  Missionary  to  go  out  and  change  the 
heart  of  the  Thug — whence  comes  a  con- 
flict of  daemons.  That  is  a  trouble ;  but 
now  in  my  own  life  I  am  come  to  a  place 
in  which  neither  daemon  nor  any  other 
sense  of  direction  seems  to  guide  me.  I 
pray,  I  pray  desperately  hard,  for  direc- 
tion, but  it  does  not  seem  to  come  :  what 
I  pray  to  be  told,  believing  as  I  do  the 
main  part  of  the  Christian  doctrine  to  be 
a  delusion,  is  whether  it  is  my  duty  to, 
whether  it  is  God's  will  that  I  should,  go 
down  into  the  arena  and  fight  the  battle 
for  what  I  believe  to  be  truth,  against 
this  delusion — this  delusion  which,  as  I 
have  said,  brings  to  so  many  people  so 
much  happiness." 

On  this  I  felt  that  I  had  no  answer  to 


ZTbe  Daemon  65 

give  him.  I  went  back  to  his  previous 
point. 

"There  is  only  one  thing,"  I  said,  in 
answer  to  his  problem  about  the  Thug 
and  the  Missionary  that  would  convert 
the  Thug,  "  only  one  supposition  that 
could  harmonize  the  apparent  discord, 
and  that  is  that  the  purpose  of  this  life 
and  the  furtherance  of  the  Great  Design 
is  fulfilled  by  each  man  doing  that  which 
his  daemon  tells  him  is  best ;  that,  so  doing, 
he  achieves  the  best  that  is  possible  for 
him,  the  best  that  his  circumstances,  en- 
vironment, heredity,  education  and  all  the 
rest  of  it  permit  to  him  here ;  that  so  he  will 
mould  as  best  he  may  what  we  call  his 
'  character,'  and  that  so,  with  this  charac- 
ter formed,  and  capable  who  can  say  of 
what  excellence  (in  spite  of  its  grotesque 
manifestations  in  this  life)  he  may  go  on 
into  another  life  of  quite  other  circum- 
stances and  environment,  and  there,  in  a 
clearer  light,  be  a  corner-stone  of  the 
Temple." 

He  replied  that  he  wished  that  it  might 
be  so,  but  that  character  and  habit  seemed 


66  TTbe  Daemon 

to  imply  a  machinery  of  nerves  and 
brain. 

Later  in  the  day  I  walked  with  Mrs. 
Hood  on  the  beautiful  moorland.  We 
passed  in  our  walk  a  cottage  in  which,  as 
Mrs.  Hood  told  me,  an  old  man  was  dying. 
As  we  went  by  the  door  we  heard  George 
Hood's  voice  within.  He  was  reading. 
He  saw  us  from  his  seat  by  the  old  man's 
bed  and  came  out. 

"How  is  old  Baker?"  Mrs.  Hood 
asked. 

"  It  is  a  matter  of  hours  only,"  he  said. 
"  I  don't  think  he  will  last  till  the  morning. 
But  he  's  quite  conscious  and  quite  happy." 

I  asked  him  what  he  had  been  reading. 
He  did  not  make  answer  to  my  first  ques- 
tion, so  I  repeated  it,  indiscreetly. 

"  I  was  reading,"  he  said  with  a  little  re- 
luctance, "  the  chapter  of  St.  John  about 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 

I  felt  ashamed  of  my  insistence,  but  I 
was  searching,  with  growing  interest,  for 
lights  on  my  friend's  character. 

Gratuitously  then  he  gave  me  a  further 
light — or  was  it  a  further  mystification  ? 


Htemon  67 

"  I  have  been  doing  something  else," 
he  said.  "  I  have  been  sending  a  message 
to  my  sister  who  died.  I  have  asked  old 
Baker  to  take  it  to  her." 

I  looked  at  him  a  moment  to  see 
whether  he  was  in  earnest.  It  appeared 
that  he  was  so. 

"  Do  you  really  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  such  a  thing  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  In  the  possibility,"  he  said,  with  em- 
phasis on  the  word,  "  certainly.  Whether 
I  believe  that  it  can  be  carried  is  another 
question.  What  do  we  mean  by  *  belief  ' 
after  all  ?  " 

"  It  is  an  original  idea,  at  all  events,"  I 
said  thoughtfully. 

"  Original  !  Oh  no,  it  is  not  that.  I 
cannot  claim  that  for  it.  It  was  suggested 
to  me  first  by  something  I  read  of  General 
Gordon,  'Chinese'  Gordon." 

"  General  Gordon  ! " 

"Yes,  it  was  a  clear,  and  to  his  mind 
quite  a  simple,  conviction  that  any  one 
dying  could  carry  a  message  for  you  to 
another  who  had  already  passed  through 
the  big  gates. 


68  Ube  Htemon 

"You  deem  this  notion  of  sending  a 
message  by  one  who  is  dying  to  one  who 
has  gone  before  a  fantastic  one,"  he  went 
on  ;  "  but  if  you  will  think  a  little  you  will 
find,  I  am  sure,  that  it  is  most  rational 
and  simple.  If  there  is  to  be  another  life 
of  the  ego,  of  the  conscious  self,  after 
death,  it  implies  that  the  ego  will  retain  a 
memory  of  its  life  on  earth.  On  no  other 
assumption  can  you  say  that  it  is  the  same 
ego,  because  the  memory  is  the  chief  factor 
that  binds  the  ego  together,  it  is  the  chief 
factor  in  self-conscious  identity.  And 
without  that  self-conscious  identity  there 
is  no  real  meaning,  intelligible  to  human 
beings,  in  the  idea  of  the  life  of  the  ego 
after  terrestrial  death.  That  being  so, 
and  granted  that  the  dead  take  with  them 
through  the  big  gates  the  memory  of 
their  life  here,  what  more  natural  than 
that  they  should  be  able  to  convey  a  mes- 
sage from  the  living  on  this  side  to  the 
living  on  that?  And  what  wonder  if 
such  a  message  should  come  as  a  great 
comfort  ?  We  may  even  imagine  each 
newly  dead  surrounded  by  those  who 


Htemon  69 


have  gone  before,  anxious  to  hear  his 
news  of  affairs  on  the  earth.  Pure  specu- 
lation, of  course,  but,  I  submit,  not  irra- 
tional speculation  !  " 

"  Tell  me  some  more  about  General 
Gordon,"  I  said.  "  Were  you  not  in- 
dignant when  he  was  sacrificed  in  the 
Soudan  ?  " 

"  Indignant  !  Yes,"  he  said  musingly, 
"  I  suppose  I  was  indignant.  Was  he 
sacrificed  ?  I  suppose  he  was  sacrificed. 
No  doubt,  however,  he  sacrificed  himself. 
When  he  went  to  the  Soudan  he  believed, 
beyond  question,  that  he  went  on  a  Divine 
mission,  and  would  receive  Divine  help. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the 
Cabinet  believed  so.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  men  that  ever  lived  in 
his  absolute,  unquestioning,  fearless  obe- 
dience to  what  Socrates  and  Epictetus 
call  the  Daemon,  the  voice  of  God.  He 
did  not  know  fear,  nor  self-will,  yet  he 
had  a  temper,  a  violent  temper.  He  was 
the  worst  possible  servant  of  a  Govern- 
ment, in  a  sense  ;  for  if  his  Daemon  ad- 
vised him  to  act  in  a  certain  way,  that 


70  Ube  Daemon 

way  he  would  take  regardless  of  human 
instructions. 

"  There  is,  after  all,  but  one  rule  of  life, 
as  it  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  by  way  of 
summarizing  the  outcome  of  all  our  talk 
—I  should  rather  say  of  all  his  talk — that 
afternoon,  "  but  it  is  sufficient.  It  is  that 
a  man  shall  follow  the  voice  within  him, 
the  voice  that  the  Greeks  called  the 
'  daemon/  and  that  the  Christian  calls  the 
conscience.  To  each  man  there  is  given 
this  guide,  as  I  firmly  believe,  if  he  will 
but  follow  its  promptings,  although,  as 
I  have  said,  there  is  one  problem  in 
my  life  about  which  I  have  sought  its 
guidance  so  far  in  vain.  Even  as  you 
listen  to  it  and  obey  it,  its  voice  grows 
clearer ;  but,  if  a  man  will  not  obey  or 
listen,  the  voice  ceases  to  instruct.  And 
this  is  the  deadly  sin — that  a  man  sins 
against  and  disobeys  the  guidance  that  is 
given  him,  for  by  doing  so  he  stifles  the 
voice  or  blunts  his  faculties  for  its  percep- 
tion. And  as  for  the  rest,  if  there  is  a 
future  life  in  which  you  and  I  and  Gracia 
and  the  boy  and  the  rest  shall  come  to- 


TTbe  Daemon  71 

gether  again — well  ;  but  if  there  is  not 
such  a  future  life — again  well,  although 
less  well.  We  gain  nothing  by  all  our 
striving  to  know.  The  truest  faith  is  to 
rest  content  and  grateful,  although  not 
knowing.  As  for  eternity — it  is  futile  to 
talk  about  it,  for  we  can  have  no  concep- 
tion of  it  except  as  a  very  long  time, 
whereas  it  is  really  only  absence  of  time. 
And  as  for  time,  we  know  hardly  more 
about  it.  We  cannot  conceive  an  end  to 
time,  any  more  than  we  can  conceive  eter- 
nity, for  we  can  only  talk  of  eternity  as  a 
time  when  there  shall  be  no  time,  which 
is  an  absurd  contradiction  in  terms.  The 
furthest  we  can  go  in  the  conception  is  of 
a  time  when  there  shall  be  no  more  death 
—death,  which  is  virtually  the  limit  of 
our  time — and,  so  doing,  we  have  only 
come  to  the  point  at  which  the  animals 
now  are  ;  for,  as  I  said  before,  to  the  best 
of  our  belief  they  live  their  lives  from  day 
to  day  as  if  they  were  in  what  it  pleases 
me  to  call  eternity,  for  they  have  no 
consciousness  that  their  lives  will  end. 
"  I  know  nothing,"  he  went  on,  "  which 


72  ZCbe 

shows  more  convincingly  the  purely  rela- 
tive and  inadequate  notion  that  we  have 
of  time  than  the  thought  that  if  we  were 
in  one  of  those  stars  whose  light  takes 
many  hundreds  of  years  to  reach  us,  and 
were  endowed  with  infinite  power  of 
vision,  we  should  see  the  things  not  that 
are  happening  to-day,  but  the  things  that 
were  happening  so  many  hundreds  of 
years  ago  ;  and  further  that,  if  we  were 
travelling  away  from  the  earth  just  a  little 
faster  than  light  travels,  and  were  en- 
dowed with  this  infinite  vision  (all  of 
which,  though  of  course  utterly  impossi- 
ble, is  perfectly  conceivable),  we  should 
see  things  on  the  earth  happening  in  their 
reverse  order — the  horses  racing  in  the 
Derby  going  backward  to  the  starting 
point ;  the  shells,  instead  of  pouring  into 
Port  Arthur  from  the  Japanese  guns,  go- 
ing backward  from  the  fort  into  the  can- 
non, and  so  on — you  may  multiply  the 
instances  as  your  imagination  suggests." 


CHAPTER  VII 

JIM    LEE,    THE    GYPSY 

THE  following  morning  I  was  awak- 
ened early  by  a  strange  voice.  It  was  the 
voice  of  a  man  talking  in  tones  of  petu- 
lant anger,  and  the  other  parties  to  the 
conversation  were  Tio  and,  occasionally, 
the  youth.  I  could  gather  from  the  tones 
that  some  kind  of  dispute  was  going  on, 
but  the  talk  was  in  what  I  presumed  to  be 
the  gypsy  dialect,  for  I  could  hardly  un- 
derstand a  word  of  it.  I  was  just  on  the 
point  of  getting  out  of  my  bunk  to  see 
what  was  the  matter  when  the  voices  be- 
came less  distinct  and  the  men  moved 
away,  and  soon  I  dozed  off  again  and  only 
awoke  to  be  in  time  to  wash  and  dress  for 
breakfast. 

"  You  had  a  visitor  last  night,  had  n't 
you  ?  "  I  asked  Hood  in  course  of  the  meal. 

73 


74  3fm  %ee,  tbe 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  Did  you  hear  him  ? 
I  hope  he  did  n't  disturb  you  ?" 

"  Only  in  the  morning,"  I  said,  "  when 
I  ought  to  have  been  up.  Who  was  it  ?  " 

"  It  was  Jim  Lee,  a  friend  of  ours.  He 
came  in  rather  far  gone  in  beer.  He  had 
been  at  the  horse-fair  at  Groombridge. 
He  knew  he  was  boozy  and  came  out  here 
to  try  to  walk  it  off,  but  he  had  had  more 
than  he  could  carry.  When  he  woke  up 
in  the  morning  he  was  in  terrible  trouble ; 
he  bought  a  couple  of  colts  from  a  farmer 
yesterday  for  fifty  pounds.  He  knew  he 
was  boozy  at  the  time,  so  he  gave  all  his 
notes  to  the  farmer  and  told  him  to  take 
fifty  pounds  from  them.  That  is  the  last 
thing  he  remembers  about  it ;  and  when 
he  woke  up  this  morning  all  his  notes  were 
gone — clean." 

"  But,  fifty  pounds  ! "  I  said.  "He  gave 
that  for  two  colts !  How  much  had  he 
altogether,  then?" 

"  He  had  five  hundred  altogether  —  to 
start  with,  that  is.  The  farmer  should 
have  taken  fifty — that  would  leave  him 
four  hundred  and  fifty." 


Xee,  tbe  6£ps£  75 

"  But  five  hundred  pounds  !  Do  you 
mean  to  say  any  man  would  go  about  with 
that  sum  of  money  all  in  notes  on  him  ?  " 
Who  is  he,  anyway,  this  Jim  Lee?" 

"  Oh,  he  is  a  gypsy." 

"  But  five  hundred  pounds !  Have 
many  of  them  as  much  money  as  that  ? 
And  do  they  always  carry  it  about  with 
them?" 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Hood,  "they 
don't  have  a  bank  and  a  cheque-book  — 
not  as  a  rule  at  least — and  if  you  have  n't 
got  that,  and  want  to  be  spending  any 
money,  you  have  to  carry  it  about  with 
you.  Besides,  where  would  they  put  it 
that  it  could  be  safer?  As  a  rule,  they 
carry  it  in  a  pocket  inside  their  waistcoats. 
If  you  were  to  ask  old  Tio  I  dare  say 
he  'd  tell  you  he  's  got  a  pretty  good  sum 
in  his  inside  waistcoat,  has  n't  he,  Gracia  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head.  "  He  's  not  got 
very  much  just  now.  He  's  bought  two 
cottages  quite  lately." 

"  Cottages  ! "  I  said.     "  Where  ?  " 

"At  Crewkerne,"  she  said,  "away  in 
the  West ;  the  other  side  of  the  Forest." 


76  3im  %eet  tbe 

"  That  's  the  New  Forest,"  Hood  ex- 
plained. 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  go  and  live  in 
them  ?  "  I  asked. 

"No,  no,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh  at  the 
question,  in  which  Hood  joined.  "We 
don't  mean  to  live  in  houses,  Tio  and  I." 

"A  good  many  of  the  gypsies  own  cot- 
tages and  small  houses,"  Hood  explained. 
"  It  is  their  favorite  form  of  investment, 
but  they  never  live  in  any  of  them.  They 
can't,  for  one  thing." 

"  Can't  live  in  them  ?  " 

"  Not  very  well.  They  get  ill  when 
they  try.  It  affects  their  spirits  and  actu- 
ally their  lungs.  We  tried  it  once — did  n't 
we,  Gracia  ? — and  it  was  n't  altogether  a 
success." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DAWN    OF    THE    SECOND    MOOD 

IT  was  quite  early  in  the  summer  that 
I  paid  my  visit  to  George  Hood  in  the 
country.  For  some  time  afterwards  I  did 
not  see  him.  He  did  not  come  to  the 
club,  or,  if  he  did  so,  it  was  always  in  my 
absence,  and  inquiry  from  the  hall-porter 
showed  that  he  had  hardly  been  there.  I 
concluded  that  he  was  with  his  caravan 
and  small  family  circle,  travelling  as  fancy 
moved  them.  I  contrasted  the  life  with 
my  own  in  the  hot,  crowded  town,  and  did 
not  find  the  comparison  in  my  favor. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  London  season 
I  had  been  dining  alone  at  the  club,  and 
one  of  the  members  asked  me  to  go  with 
him  to  a  box  at  the  play  which  had  been 
given  him  by  the  actor-manager.  The  piece 
was  one  of  those  musical  operettas  with 

77 


78         H>awn  of  tbe  Secono 

slight  plot,  to  which  one  pays  as  much  or 
as  little  attention  as  one  likes.  Generally 
they  have  a  catchy  song  or  two,  and  for 
the  rest  there  is  nothing  that  one  remem- 
bers of  them.  We  reached  our  box  about 
the  middle  of  the  first  act,  and  on  looking 
down  at  the  stalls  I  was  much  surprised  to 
see  George  Hood  in  the  second  row.  Like 
a  good  many  others  in  the  house,  he  was 
paying  slight  attention  to  the  stage,  and 
at  the  moment  that  I  caught  sight  of  him 
was  obviously  so  fully  engrossed  in  talk 
with  the  neighbor  on  his  right,  that  for  all 
he  knew  of  it  no  performance  might  have 
been  acted  at  all. 

"Who  is  that  George  Hood  is  talking 
to — in  the  second  row  ?  "  I  asked  my  com- 
panion, who  was  one  of  those  who  made  it 
a  duty  to  know  every  one  and  everything. 

"  That  ?  "  he  said  in  a  tone  of  surprise  ; 
"  don't  you  know  who  that  is  ?  That  is 
Miss  Whatman,  the  beautiful  Olga  What- 
man, American,  Philadelphian,  twenty 
thousand  a  year — pounds,  not  dollars,  and 
not  in  Chicago  sausages  either — real  es- 
tate, as  they  call  it — wonderfully  clever  girl, 


H)awn  of  tbe  Secono  flDoofc        79 

learned  and  all  that,  but  good  company, 
too.  Come  over  here  to  marry  a  duke,  I 
suppose,  like  all  the  rest  of  them.  That 's 

L on  the  other  side  of  her.  He  's 

going  to  be  a  duke  when  his  father  dies, 
which  he  ought  to  do  soon  by  all  rights. 
That  's  what  he  's  brought  here  for  to- 
night, no  doubt — to  marry  Miss  What- 
man. But  the  lady  seems  more  taken 
up  with  our  friend  for  the  moment,  don't 
she?" 

"  I  did  n't  know  Hood  was  in  town," 
I  said.  "  I  wonder  how  long  he  's  been 
up?" 

"In  town  !  Why,  he 's  been  here  all  the 
season.  Don't  you  know  he  's  been  danc- 
ing attendance  on  Miss  Whatman  ever 
since  she  came  over  ?  Where  have  you 
been  that  you  don't  hear  these  things  ?  " 

"  I  have  n't  been  anywhere  that  it  's 
fashionable  to  be,"  I  said,  "  that  's  quite 
clear.  And  I  suppose  that  George  Hood 
has.  I  Ve  never  seen  him  in  the  club  for 
ages." 

"  That  's  so,  my  dear  fellow.  These 
American  ladies  are  exigeant.  They  make 


8o        H>awn  of  tbe  Second  /iDooo 

terrible  wives.  If  Hood  does  marry  her, 
he  '11  find  he  's  caught  a  Tartar,  I  ex- 
pect." 

"Oh!  he "  ("He  can't,"  I  was 

about  to  say,  but  then  I  checked  myself 
in  time.  I  knew  that  Hood  wished  me 
to  regard  as  confidential  my  knowledge  of 
his  domestic  matters.)  "  He  's  not  likely 
to  do  that,  I  should  think,"  I  ended 
lamely. 

"  You  never  can  tell,"  my  friend  said, 
sagely.  "  George  Hood  's  a  curious  fel- 
low. He  has  curious  tastes  and  ways — 
not  like  the  ordinary  British  ruffian  that 
we  meet  every  day,  you  know.  That  sort 
of  thing  has  attractions  for  a  woman,  and 
they  do  say  that  the  beautiful  Miss  Olga 
is  very  much  taken  up  with  him.  He's 
clever,  of  course,  in  his  way,  and  so  is  she. 
Of  course,  there 's  a  big  competition.  She 's 
become  quite  the  fashion,  and  of  course 
twenty  thousand  a  year  and  a  real  beauty 
— she 's  got  ancestors,  too,  more  than  most 
Americans — don't  go  begging  for  want  of 
asking.  Still,  I  believe  Hood  's  first 
favorite  for  the  stakes.  Look  at  them 


Dawn  of  tbe  Secono  flDooo        81 

now.  The  duke  that  is  to  be,  and  mar- 
quis that  is,  has  got  to  do  all  his  talking  to 
the  old  Miss  Whatman  aunt,  on  the  other 
side." 

My  gossipy  friend  relapsed  into  a 
silence,  and  gave  his  attention  to  the 
stage  after  this  historiette  ;  but  I  had  my 
drama  now — a  far  more  interesting  one 
than  that  we  had  come  to  see.  I  had 
front  seats  for  it.  It  was  a  drama  that 
was  not  without  its  pathos  as  I  thought  of 
that  transcendently  beautiful  creature  with 
the  dumb,  dog-like  eyes  in  the  caravan. 
At  that  moment  the  heroine  of  the  piece 
came  on  the  stage  for  the  song  of  the 
evening,  with  topical  references  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  to  be  encored  again  and 
again.  At  that  moment,  too,  Hood 
glanced  up  and  met  my  eyes  full  upon 
him.  At  the  distance  it  was  not  certain 
that  he  could  recognize  me,  and  for  the 
time  being  I  could  not  tell  whether  or  no 
he  had  done  so.  But  he  gave  his  atten- 
tion to  the  song.  He  ceased  suddenly 
from  talking  in  his  engrossed  way  to  his 
companion.  She,  too,  turned  to  the  stage, 

6 


82        2>awn  of  tbe  Second 


and  I  could  study  in  profile  her  face, 
which  before  had  been  nearly  full  towards 
us.  It  was  a  refined,  delicate  face,  with 
that  vivacity  of  expression  that  the  Ameri- 
cans often  possess.  In  beauty  of  color 
and  classic  perfection  of  feature,  it  bore  no 
more  comparison  with  that  astonishing 
countenance  of  Hood's  wife  than  a  rush- 
light to  the  sun,  in  the  trite  simile  ;  but 
here  the  relatively  insignificant  features 
were  alive  with  the  play  of  mind.  Her 
hair  was  of  the  color  of  ripe  corn. 

I  recalled,  and  smiled  at  the  recollec- 
tion, Hood's  description  to  me,  in  early 
days  of  our  friendship,  of  a  small  and  very 
select  dinner  party  where  the  hostess  was 
a  would-be  soulful  and  clever  woman  with 
fair  hair.  After  detailing  the  boredom  of 
the  party,  with  whimsical  humor,  Hood 
had  concluded  :  "  D  -  n  all  clever 
women.  D  -  n  all  sandy  women. 
D  -  n  all  sandy  clever  women."  Yet 
here  was  one  whom  in  his  whimsical 
mood  he  might  quite  well  describe  in  just 
these  terms,  but  he  did  not  look  as  if  he 
was  at  all  disposed  to  d  -  n  her. 


Dawn  of  tbe  Second  flDooo        83 

During  the  rest  of  the  play  he  did  not 
at  any  time  appear  to  become,  to  the  same 
degree  as  before,  engrossed  in  his  talk 
with  the  American,  and  once  or  twice  it 
even  seemed  to  me  that  she  was  a  little 
piqued  with  him  for  the  attention  that  he 
gave  to  the  stage.  She  transferred  some 
of  her  doubtless  sparkling  conversation  to 
the  rising  duke,  but  possibly  he  did  not 
bear  his  part  brilliantly,  for  their  talks 
were  not  prolonged.  We  left  before  the 
end  of  the  piece,  so  that  there  was  no 
likelihood  of  seeing  Hood  as  we  came  out. 

The  following  day  it  seemed  only 
natural  that  I  should  meet  him  at  the 
club.  He  had  not  been  there  for  weeks 
before,  although  I  now  knew  that  he  had 
been  in  London  ;  yet  this  day  I  had  a 
feeling  that  it  was  sure  he  would  be 
there. 

"  I  had  to  come,"  he  said,  without  greet- 
ing me  in  any  other  formula  and  without 
any  handshake.  "  I  had  to  come  to  see 
you  :  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  I  saw  you 
at  the  theatre  last  night.  For  days  and 
weeks  I  have  not  come  here  in  order  to 


84        H>awn  of  tbe  Second 

avoid  you.  But  now  I  must  see  you  and 
talk  to  you,  although  nothing  has  hap- 
pened ;  nothing,  except  that  you  saw  me 
at  the  theatre.  I  want  to  talk." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "here  I  am.  Talk 
away." 

"  No,  not  here ;  that  would  not  do.  We 
should  be  interrupted.  I  hate  a  club.  I 
I  could  not  talk  to  you  here — not  as  I 
want  to.  What  are  you  doing  to-night  ?" 

"  I  am  dining  out,"  I  said.  "  That  is 
all.  I  could  come  on  to  you  afterwards  if 
you  like.  I  suppose  I  shall  get  away  at 
eleven  or  so." 

"  That  would  do ;  it  is  very  good  of 
you."  He  spoke  with  an  agitated  grati- 
tude at  my  acquiescence,  as  he  had  before 
spoken  with  an  agitated  earnestness  of 
entreaty  that  I  should  consent  to  act  as 
audience  to  him. 

"  Where  are  your  rooms  ?  "  I  asked. 

He  gave  me  a  queer  address  in  Chelsea. 
"  You  drive  along  the  King's  Road  till  the 
horse  drops,"  he  said.  "  It 's  there." 

I  happened  to  be  dining  in  the  Ken- 
sington direction,  so  the  meeting  was  less 


Dawn  of  tbe  Secono  /IDooD         85 

inconvenient  than  it  might  have  been. 
Soon  after  eleven,  by  dint  of  questioning 
of  policemen  and  loafers  of  various  kinds, 
the  cabman  arrived  at  what  he  appeared 
to  think  must  be  the  street  and  the  num- 
ber I  had  given  him.  The  wall  of  the 
house  looked  singularly  blank  and  unre- 
sponsive, as  walls  without  windows  do, 
but  it  had  at  least  a  door  and  a  bell.  The 
bell  was  answered  after  much  waiting  by 
a  female  who  seemed  of  the  charwoman 
species.  I  asked  for  Mr.  Hood,  and, 
when  she  had  inspected  me  for  a  while 
with  an  unfavorable  eye,  she  consented  to 
usher  me  down  a  long  stone  passage  till 
we  came  opposite  a  door,  at  which  she 
knocked  with  resonant  energy,  and  saying 
briefly,  "  That  's  him,"  ambled  off  down 
the  further  depths  of  the  ill-lighted  space. 
The  door  was  opened  by  Hood  himself, 
who  took  my  hand  gratefully. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  would  n't  come,"  he 
said. 

"  Why  ?  "  I  asked,  rather  naturally  sur- 
prised. 

"  Because  I  wanted  so  much  to  see  you. 


86        Dawn  of  tbe  Seconfc  /IDooo 

I  hardly  know  what  I  should  have  done  if 
you  had  n't  come." 

"  But  what  a  surprising  place  this  is  !." 
I  said,  looking  about  me. 

The  room  was  large  and  lofty,  lighted 
apparently  by  a  window  in  the  roof  during 
the  daytime,  but  for  the  moment  by  elec- 
tric burners  agreeably  shaded  to  throw  a 
subdued  rose-colored  radiance.  The  walls 
were  hung  with  tapestries  representing 
hunting  scenes  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
floor  had  a  rich  Persian  carpet,  into  which 
one's  feet  sank  deliciously.  In  one  corner 
a  drugget  was  spread  upon  it,  and  on  this 
stood  an  easel  apparently  carrying  a  can- 
vas, but  a  sheet  bearing  innumerable 
paint  stains  was  thrown  over  it  and  hid 
the  picture,  if  there  were  one,  from  present 
inspection.  No  pictures  were  on  the  walls, 
but  against  the  tapestry,  and  in  admir- 
able keeping  with  it,  suits  of  iron  armor 
reflecting  the  glow  of  the  light.  The 
mantelpiece  was  of  finely  carved  marble, 
presumably  Italian  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury in  design,  and  over  it  hung  an  ar- 
rangement of  old  weapons  and  helmets. 


Dawn  of  tbe  Secono  flDoo&        87 

There  were  several  carved  wood  cabinets, 
of  the  same  date  as  the  mantelpiece,  bear- 
ing beautiful  bronzes.  Even  the  electric- 
light  fittings  were  of  iron-work  of  the 
same  best  period  of  Italian  workmanship, 
adapted  to  this  essentially  modern  use. 
Only  the  sofas  and  chairs  were  of  the 
newest  and  most  luxurious  pattern.  It 
was  a  room  to  wonder  at  anywhere,  and 
especially  after  the  drive  to  this  obscure 
street,  and  the  old  dame,  shuffling  down 
the  dim  stone  passage,  for  usher. 

"How  did  you  find  such  a  place?"  I 
asked. 

"  I  found  the  place  by  accident,"  he 
answered,  carelessly,  "and,  of  course,  all 
these  things  I  put  into  it." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  did  not  suppose  they 
belonged  to  furnished  apartments." 

"  I  had  to  ask  you  to  come  and  see  me," 
he  said,  reverting  to  the  subject  that  evi- 
dently was  besetting  his  mind.  "  I  had  to 
talk  to  you,  to  tell  you.  I  had  to  tell 
somebody.  Have  you  ever  felt  like  that 
about  anything?" 

"  I  have  felt  like  it,  I  think,"  I  admitted. 


88        Dawn  of  tbe  Secono 


"  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  ever  quite 
yielded  to  the  feeling.  And  always,  I 
may  tell  you,  also,  I  have  been  glad,  after- 
wards that  I  have  not  yielded.  I  want  to 
tell  you  this,  because  I  want  you  to  think 
well  before  you  tell  me  whatever  it  is  that 
you  were  going  to.  I  fancy  you  are  sure 
to  regret  telling  me  afterwards,  if  you  do 
tell." 

"  Do  you  know  what  I  think  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"No.     What?" 

"  That  if  you  wanted  to  say  a  word  that 
would  make  me  still  more  anxious  to  con- 
fide in  you  it  would  be  just  what  you  have 
said  to  me  now  —  this  caution." 

"Well,"  I  answered,  laughing,  "that 
was  not  my  intention.  I  did  not  mean 
to  be  so  subtle.  I  meant  simply  what  I 
said." 

"  Yes,"  he  replied,  "  I  am  sure  you 
did."  Then,  after  a  pause,  "  One  generally 
wants  to  tell  this  sort  of  thing  to  a  woman 
does  n't  one  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  quite  know  what  the 
sort  of  thing  is  yet,"  I  said. 


2>awn  ot  tbe  Second  flDoofc        89 

"  Oh  yes,  I  expect  you  do,"  he  replied. 
"  You  have  made  guesses,  at  least,  and 
I  dare  say  they  have  not  been  far 
wrong." 

There  was  nothing  to  answer  to  this. 
Naturally  I  had  made  guesses,  and  one 
usually  presumes  one's  guesses  to  be  more 
or  less  right.  A  long  pause  ensued.  Ap- 
parently, although  he  was  so  anxious  to 
talk  to  me,  he  was  in  no  great  hurry  to 
begin.  I  wondered  whether  he  was 
weighing  my  advice  and  debating  the 
wisdom  of  the  proposed  confidence,  and 
in  spite  of  my  word  of  warning  I  was  con- 
scious of  sufficient  human  curiosity  to 
hope  that  he  did  not  mean  to  take  it. 

"  Has  it  happened  to  you,"  he  asked  — 
"  but  of  course  it  has,  I  need  not  have  put 
it  in  the  form  of  a  question — going  down 
a  staircase  or  a  passage  in  a  strange  house, 
to  come  suddenly  face  to  face  with  a  fig- 
ure that  is  quite  strange  to  you,  in  some 
ways  the  strangest  figure,  as  it  seems  to 
you,  in  the  world,  because  it  is  so  like 
something  that  you  know,  and  yet  so  un- 
like ?  Of  course  it  is  yourself  that  you 


90        Dawn  ot  tbe  Secont)  /!Doofc 

have  suddenly  come  face  to  face  with  in  a 
mirror ;  and  to  see  yourself  thus  is  some- 
thing like  a  betrayal.  To  find  yourself 
with  such  an  expression  on  your  face ! 
To  realize  that  it  is  thus  that  you  must 
appear  to  others  !  It  shows  you  your  real 
self,  for  an  instant ;  and  it  shows  you,  too, 
how  unlike  this  real  self  is  to  the  face  that 
you  put  on  that  self  when  you  know  be- 
forehand that  you  are  about  to  meet  it  in 
a  mirror.  Well,  something  very  similar 
to  that  happens  to  me  often  when  some- 
thing occurs  to  give  me  an  unexpected 
look  at  my  real  moral  self.  Sometimes 
it  is  something  in  a  book — I  think  George 
Meredith  is  the  great  revealer — he  and 
Balzac  —  and  sometimes  it  is  something 
that  I  have  done  or  felt  without  much  re- 
flection on  its  moral  meaning,  and  sud- 
denly have  become  conscious  of,  in  its 
real  significance.  We  cannot  make  life 
happy,  but  we  can  always  make  it  inter- 
esting, if  we  choose  ;  for  when  we  have 
done  wondering  at  our  fellow  creatures 
we  must  be  fearfully  dull  if  we  cannot 
find  plenty  of  surprises  in  ourselves.  I 


Dawn  of  tbe  Secono  /IDoofc        91 

have  been  surprising  myself  a  good  deal 
in  that  way  lately,  I  assure  you." 

I  began  to  think  that  he  was  going  to 
take  my  hint  of  caution  and  to  withhold 
from  me  the  confidence  that  I  had  advised 
him  not  to  make.  I  need  not  have  feared 
the  disappointment.  Even  as  I  felt  my- 
self smiling  at  the  human  weakness  of 
curiosity  in  which  I  had  detected  myself 
he  began. 

"You  are  the  only  one  that  knows,"  he 
said — "  about  Gracia,  I  mean.  The  only 
one  of  people  in  London — of  the  people 
we  know.  I  married  Gracia,"  he  went  on, 
"because  I  loved  her.  I  suppose  you 
may  think  that  a  sufficiently  natural  ex- 
planation— hardly  worth  the  making,  per- 
haps. What  I  mean  is  that  I  loved  her 
truly,  deeply,  passionately — oh,  yes,  pas- 
sionately, but  the  love  was  more  than 
passion.  That  is  what  I  want  you  to 
understand.  It  was — it  is — a  true,  deep 
affection,  besides.  She  is  wonderful." 

"  She  is,"  I  agreed  cordially. 

"  Ah,  you  do  not  know  her,"  he  said 
quickly,  as  if  rebuking  my  presumption. 


92         H>awn  of  tbe  Secont>  flDooo 

"You  know  her,  of  course,  as  a  very 
beautiful  woman ;  no  one  could  fail  to 
recognize  that.  But  she  has  qualities,  ex- 
traordinary qualities.  She  is  not  a  bit 
like  other  women." 

"  No,  I  should  not  think  she  is,"  I 
assented. 

"  She  has  wonderful  qualities,  but  they 
are  all  of  the  heart,  of  the  temperament. 
They  are  not  those  of  the  head,  of  the 
mind.  Do  you  know  what  I  think  they 
are  most  like  ?  "  He  rose  up  as  he  spoke, 
and  began  agitatedly  walking  to  and  fro 
on  the  noiseless  carpet.  "  They  are  most 
like  —  you  will  not  misunderstand  —  like 
those  of  a  very  trusting,  faithful  dog." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  quite  understand  what 
you  mean." 

"  There  is  this  about  Gracia  that  is  so 
wonderful,"  he  went  on.  "  I  leave  her 
down  there,  there  in  that  caravan — it  is 
the  life  she  loves  best,  you  know ;  in  fact, 
the  only  one  that  she  can  live  with  any 
comfort — and  when  I  come  back  to  her, 
what  do  you  think  she  does  ?  You  have 
seen  for  yourself.  She  does  not  assail 


Dawn  ot  tbe  Secon&  /IDoofc        93 

me  with  a  flood  of  questions,  as  another 
woman  would  ;  she  does  not  ask  me  where 
I  have  been,  what  I  have  been  doing, 
whom  I  have  seen.  She  asks  none  of 
these  things.  She  does  not  care  to  know. 
Or  perhaps  she  does  not  think  she  would 
understand  if  I  were  to  tell.  At  all  events 
she  does  not  ask.  That  is  what  is  so 
wonderful." 

"  She  trusts  you  so  perfectly,"  I  ven- 
tured to  say,  as  he  paused. 

"  My  God,  she  does ! "  he  replied  with 
a  vehemence  that  startled  me.  "  She  trusts 
me  so  perfectly.  And  she  has  had  every 
reason  to.  She  has  had — yes." 

He  paused  again.  I  knew  that  the 
crucial  point  of  the  confession  was  coming, 
and  knew  too  that,  however  much  the  un- 
burdening himself  of  it  had  become  a 
necessity  to  him,  the  final  telling  must  be 
hard. 

"And  she  always  shall  be  able  to  trust 
me,"  he  continued.  "  In  the  vulgar  sense, 
yes — I  shall  never  be  unfaithful  to  her — 
at  least,  if  I  know  myself  I  shall  not.  If  I 
were  to  be  unfaithful  to  her,  and  to  come 


94        2>awn  of  tbe  Secono 

back  to  her,  pretending,  those  eyes  of  hers 
would  kill  me  with  the  shame  of  it.  If  I 
ever  should,  I  would  first  break  with  her, 
tell  her.  What  do  you  think  she  would 
do,"  he  asked  suddenly,  "  if  I  were  to  ?" 

I  thought  over  this  for  a  while  before  I 
answered,  but  I  might  as  well  not  have 
thought,  for  all  I  found  to  say  was,  "  I 
really  cannot  tell." 

He  laughed  in  a  forced  way.  "  And, 
do  you  know,"  he  said,  "  no  more  can  I." 

It  interested  me  to  find  that  my  beauti- 
ful enigma  was  an  enigma  even  to  him. 

"  Sometimes  I  think  she  would  care,"  he 
said,  "  for  I  do  believe  she  loves  me ;  and 
then  again  I  think  it  impossible  that  she 
should  care — for  that  or  for  anything — im- 
possible that  anything  could  move  to  emo- 
tion a  nature  so  calm." 

After  a  pause  he  went  on  :  "But,  after 
all,  is  that  the  most  serious  unfaithfulness 
— that  only  sort  of  which  the  law  takes 
any  note  ?  Is  it  not  even  worse  if  a  man 
takes  from  the  woman  to  whom  they  are 
due  the  best  of  his  thoughts,  sympathies, 
aspirations,  and  offers  them  to  another  ?  " 


Dawn  ot  tbe  Second  flDoofc        95 

"  It  is  possible  to  put  the  question  in 
another  way,"  I  suggested,  "  and  ask,  '  Is 
it  to  be  supposed  that  one  woman  will  be 
able  to  appreciate,  bring  out,  respond  to, 
all  that  is  best  in  all  the  different  sides  of 
a  man's  nature  ?'  Put  the  question  in  that 
way,  and  you  will  find  a  different  answer 
ready  for  it." 

"  You  are  suggesting  a  kind  of  polygamy 
of  the  soul.  " 

"If  you  care  to  put  it  like  that.  But, 
after  all,  to  come  back  to  the  concrete.  In 
your  own  case  would  it  be  possible  for  the 
one  woman  to  respond  to  the  more  intel- 
lectual, aesthetic — call  it  what  you  will — 
side  of  your  own  nature  ?  " 

"That  is  just  it,  that  is  just  it,"  he  re- 
plied eagerly.  "  It  is  nothing,  to  her,  all 
this  one  side — the  higher  side,  as  we  call 
it — of  human  nature,  at  least  of  cultivated 
human  nature.  What,  then,  am  I  to  do  ? 
Am  I  to  be  bound  ?  Am  I  to  keep  that 
which  is  best  in  me  down,  to  cripple  it, 
for  the  sake  of  being  true  to  a  vow? 
Am " 

"  Or  for  the  sake  of  pity  for  a  woman 


96        Dawn  of  tbe  Secono  flDooo 

who  loves  you,  and  that  woman  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  world  " — I  interrupted  him. 

I  was  a  little  ashamed  of  the  part  I  had 
played,  for  I  had  put  in  its  best  light  that 
which  I  felt  (I  felt,  rather  than  argued)  to 
be  worst.  At  least,  there  was  the  vow. 
My  friend  of  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic 
soul  was  married  (I  at  all  events  under- 
stood and  believed  him  to  be  married)  to 
the  marvellously  beautiful  goddess  of  the 
van.  The  sacredness  of  the  marriage  vow 
ought  to  be  a  fundamental  sanctity  at  the 
bottom  of  all  social  foundation.  One  could 
not  lightly  play  the  devil's  advocate  against 
that.  And  yet  here  was  a  case  of  a  man 
married  to  one  woman  to  whom  all  the  in- 
tellectual and  aesthetic  side  was  nothing. 
To  her  it  was  nothing  ;  therefore,  in  giving 
this  to  another  woman,  he  was  taking 
nothing — just  no  more  and  no  less  than 
nothing  —  from  the  other.  Was  there 
unfaithfulness  in  this  ?  Was  any  one 
one  penny  the  worse  ? 

But  this  was  casuistry.  With  a  marriage 
vow  in  one  scale  of  the  balance  there 
ought  to  be  no  consideration  that  could 


Dawn  ot  tbe  Second  /IDoofc         97 

weigh  in  the  other.  That  is  what  in- 
herited and  acquired  principle  said.  And 
there  was  always  this  consideration  fur- 
ther :  my  friend  never,  he  said,  would  be 
unfaithful,  in  the  vulgar  sense,  to  his  god- 
dess of  the  van ;  but  he  qualified  this 
brave  assertion  with  a  proviso — "if  he 
knew  himself."  Did  he  know  himself? 
One  had  to  ask  that  always.  Does  a 
man  ever  know,  when  he  goes  on  these 
paths,  where  they  are  to  lead  him  ;  and  is 
not  the  most  fertile  ground  of  a  man's 
surprises  his  own  strange  heart  ? 

Curious  though,  when  this  man  had 
summoned  me  to  hear  his  confession, 
that  I  should  be  the  one  who  was  excus- 
ing him,  finding  him  reasons,  he  condemn- 
ing himself  !  For  that  was  the  way  of  it. 
Of  course  the  discussion  ran  into  the 
morning  hours,  with  some,  but  not  all, 
names  given,  details  mentioned,  dots  put 
on  "  i's,"  and  so  on ;  but  none  of  all 
that  matters.  There  was  the  fact :  my 
friend  stood  at  the  crisis  ;  he  had  made 
his  confession  ;  he  was  no  nearer  the  solu- 
tion by  reason  of  having  made  it.  But  he 


98        2>awn  ot  tbe  Second  /lDoot> 

had  made  it  in  response  to  the  stern  neces- 
sity that  comes  at  times  to  men,  and  more 
often  to  women,  of  telling  his  trouble,  of 
getting  some  one  to  share  the  burden. 
The  trouble  would  be  lighter  for  a  while, 
of  course,  after  his  telling  it.  I  knew 
that.  I  knew  also  that  it  would  recur 
just  as  strongly  as  ever,  and  that  then, 
very  likely,  he  would  regret  bitterly  that 
he  ever  had  told.  I  had  warned  him  of 
that  probability  at  the  outset,  before  the 
telling ;  but  he  would  take  no  heed.  So 
that  phase  of  the  drama  was  done,  and  I 
went  home,  in  the  glimmering  dawn,  very 
sleepy. 

"  Man  is  put  into  this  world,"  he  had 
argued,  "  with  certain  responsibilities  ;  but 
the  chief  of  all  the  responsibilities  is  him- 
self, that  he  should  make  the  best  possible 
of  his  own  clay  and  the  soul  that  animates 
it."  That,  a  categorical  imperative  of 
egoism,  was  the  phrase  that  summed  the 
question  up.  Was  that,  after  all,  the  first 
duty  of  man  ?  I  was  very  sleepy.  The 
answer  could  wait  at  least  till  the  morrow. 


CHAPTER  IX 

GEORGE  HOOD'S  FATHER 

THE  very  next  day  Hood  came  to  my 
rooms  almost  before  I  had  finished  break- 
fast. For  a  little  while  he  fidgeted  about, 
obviously  uneasy  ;  then  he  said  abruptly  : 

"  I  thought  you  would  think  it  curious 
that  in  all  our  talk  last  night  we  said  no- 
thing about  Miss  Whatman." 

"  Did  we  not  say  anything  about  her  ? 
I  thought  we  had  referred  to  her,  more  or 
less  directly,  pretty  often." 

"  More  or  less  directly,  yes — chiefly  less. 
And  that  was  the  better  way.  But  a  point 
that  we  never  touched  on  was  how  far  I 
was  free  to — well,  let  me  say  it,  to  marry 
her." 

"  You  seemed  to  treat  the  question  as 
if  you  were  perfectly  free,"  I  said. 

"  As  if  I  were  perfectly  free — yes,  that  is 

99 


's  jfatber 


how  I  did  wish  to  put  it  to  you,  for  the 
purpose  of  discussion.  I  am  so  —  legally 
free." 

"It  was  only  a  form  of  speech  and 
courtesy  when  you  introduced  Gracia  to 
me  as  your  wife  ?  "  I  hazarded. 

"  Not  entirely.  And  that  is  partly  what 
I  wished  to  speak  to  you  again  about. 
Gracia  and  I  were  married,  according  to 
Spanish  gypsy  rites.  And  now  I  must 
ask  you  to  understand  that  that  form  of 
marriage  has  just  as  much  moral  effect 
for  me  as  if  we  had  been  married  in  a 
church,  no  more  and  no  less." 

"  That  is  to  say,  it  has  virtually  none." 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  that  is  not  an  exact  way 
of  putting  it,  because  to  Gracia  it  repre- 
sents a  perfectly  binding  agreement.  It 
is  the  recognition  of  that  that  makes  it 
something  of  a  bond  for  me  also.  If  I 
were  untrue  to  it,  it  would  be  a  breach  of  a 
covenant  that  she  regards  as  sacred.  That 
is  the  moral  position." 

"And  the  legal?" 

"  There  is  no  question  of  that.  Legally 
I  am  absolutely  free.  That  is  a  point 


Doo&'s  jfatber  101 


that  I  wished  to  make  clear  to  you.  That 
is  why  I  treated  the  situation  as  I  did  in 
our  talk  last  night.  There  is  no  legal 
bond,  no  legal  obstacle  to  my  marrying 
any  free  woman." 

I  said  nothing.  I  thought  several  things, 
but  none  of  them,  if  spoken,  would  have 
made  for  pleasant  relations  between  us. 
As  I  said  nothing  he  added  :  "  And  that 
very  fact  makes  me  feel  the  moral  bond 
between  myself  and  Gracia  so  much  the 
stronger." 

The  addendum  took  from  me  all  wish 
to  say  the  things  that  had  been  in  my 
mind  the  moment  before.  The  strange 
friendship  between  us,  imperilled  for  a 
brief  space,  stood  re-established  on  its  old 
basis. 

He  was  silent  for  a  long  while  after  this, 
and  I  did  not  interrupt.  I  saw  that  he 
was  hard  at  work  thinking,  and  one  does 
not  interrupt  a  train  of  thought  that  one 
expects  to  end  with  some  interesting  word. 
It  was  very  seldom  that  he  disappointed 
an  expectation  of  the  kind,  but  I  must  say 
that  I  had  looked  for  something  very 


102  <3eor0e  tboofc's  ffatber 

different  from  the  remark  that  came  :  "  I 
want  you  to  know  my  father." 

There  was  at  least  this  merit  in  my 
strange  friend — the  thing  that  he  said  was 
seldom  to  be  forecasted  :  but  this  amiable 
wish  that  I  should  see  his  father  surprised 
me  the  more,  because  I  failed  altogether 
to  perceive  by  what  hooks  it  hung  to  the 
talk  that  had  gone  before.  I  so  often 
failed  to  see  the  hooks,  however,  that  I 
ought  to  have  ceased  to  feel  surprise.  It 
was  the  first  time  that  he  ever  had  men- 
tioned his  father  to  me.  I  knew  by  hearsay 
that  he  had  a  father,  but  a  less  domestic 
man,  a  man  more  independent  of  family 
ties,  it  was  not  easy  to  imagine ;  for  one 
could  hardly  call  the  wonderful  woman 
of  the  caravan  and  the  brown  baby  a 
tie. 

The  barest  courtesy  would  have  obliged 
me  to  say  that  I  should  be  pleased  to 
know  his  father,  even  if  it  were  not  true ; 
and  it  was  absolutely  true  that  I  had  be- 
come keenly  interested  in  every  "  light,"  so 
to  call  it,  that  could  help  me  to  an  under- 
standing of  this  quaint  fellow  who  had  so 


George  Iboofc's  ffatber  103 

quaintly  become  my  friend.  I  had  grown 
to  regard  him  as  a  problem,  a  problem  that 
I  wished  to  solve  chiefly  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  solution. 

We  arranged  details  of  the  visit.  His 
father  lived  in  the  country — not  in  a  van, 
as  he  told  me  with  a  smile.  We  went 
down  for  the  proposed  visit  on  the  Satur- 
day following  the  day  on  which  he  had 
suggested  it,  travelling  by  a  fast  train  to 
Ipswich,  then  on  by  a  train  that  crawled, 
and  stopped  at  all  the  little  wayside 
stations.  At  one  of  the  smallest  of  them 
we  got  out,  and  found  a  brougham  wait- 
ing for  us  with  a  coachman  and  footman. 
It  was  not  until  we  were  in  the  brougham 
that  Hood  told  me  anything  of  the  party 
we  were  to  meet  or  the  nature  of  our 
probable  reception. 

"There  will  be  no  one  there,"  he  said. 
"  Only  my  father.  You  must  not  be  sur- 
prised if  you  do  not  find  him  very  demon- 
strative. I  am  not  on  very  good  terms 
with  him." 

It  did  not  sound  cheery.  I  should  have 
preferred  the  caravan.  But  after  all  it 


104          <3eorae  Tboofc's  ffatber 

might  possibly  be  interesting.  Our  visit 
was  for  the  "  week-end,"  as  it  is  the  fashion 
to  call  it,  only.  We  were  to  return  on 
the  Monday.  If  it  were  to  be  a  bore,  at 
least  it  would  be  soon  over. 

The  house  was  square,  of  red  brick, 
here  and  there  relieved  by  white  stone 
facing  —  an  ugly  house.  But  it  looked 
substantial  and  comfortable.  The  interior 
confirmed  the  impression  of  the  outside. 
There  were  soft  carpets,  heavy,  good,  fur- 
niture, abundance  of  light,  of  servants,  of 
all  that  goes  to  make  for  solid  comfort, 
and  indicates  that  money  is  not  considered. 
Our  host  did  not  appear,  to  welcome  us, 
and  we  went  to  our  rooms  to  dress. 
When  I  came  down  to  the  drawing-room 
before  dinner  I  found  my  friend  talking 
with  a  man  whom  at  the  first  glance  I 
should  not  have  taken  to  be  much  older 
than  himself ;  for,  though  his  face  was  of 
an  astonishing  and  almost  deathlike  pallor, 
his  figure  had  the  slightness  that  suggests 
comparative  youth.  He  might  have  been 
a  man  only  entering  middle  life,  on  whom 
chronic  delicacy  has  set  its  pathetic  mark. 


(Beorge  Dock's  jfatber  105 

Hood  introduced  me  to  him  as  his  father, 
and  by  the  first  words  of  formal  courtesy 
with  which  he  greeted  me  his  voice  seemed 
at  once  to  betray  his  age.  It  was  the 
thin  broken  voice  of  a  man  whose  vital 
tide  is  on  the  ebb. 

During  dinner  the  talk  was  of  the  most 
general  nature,  and  indifferently  sustained. 
Father  and  son  discussed  the  questions 
of  the  day  in  politics  and  the  like  com- 
monplace subjects  rather  as  if  they  had 
been  coevals  but  slightly  acquainted  with 
each  other  than  related  as  I  knew  them  to 
be.  My  anticipation  that  the  visit  might 
not  prove  cheery  seemed  in  course  of  ful- 
filment, but  still  the  situation  was  an  inter- 
esting one  to  study.  The  dinner  was 
short  and  simple,  but  perfectly  cooked, 
served  on  fine  plate  and  table  linen  and 
handed  by  a  butler  and  two  footmen. 
Our  host  drank  water,  but  claret,  port, 
and  liqueur  with  the  coffee  were  served  to 
George  Hood  and  myself,  and  all  were  of 
the  best  in  their  different  kind.  After 
dinner  Mr.  Hood  sat  with  us  for  half  an 
hour  or  so,  smoking  a  cigarette  or  two, 


'S  ffatber 


and  then,  with  an  excuse  that  his  health 
obliged  him  to  go  to  bed  early,  left  us  to 
our  own  devices.  There  was  a  studied 
coldness  and  formality,  with  perfect  cour- 
tesy, in  his  demeanor  to  his  son  ;  and  to 
myself,  as  his  son's  friend,  he  adopted  the 
same  manner,  which  might,  for  all  I  knew, 
be  characteristic  of  him  in  all  his  dealings 
with  his  fellow  men.  His  fine  marble  face 
never  once  relaxed  into  a  smile  through- 
out the  glacial  evening.  It  was  like  the 
face  of  an  inscrutable  sphinx,  worn,  it 
might  be  by  constant  pain,  into  an  ex- 
pression of  suffering  immobility. 

"Well,"  said  George  Hood,  when  he 
had  sat  for  some  moments  in  silence  after 
our  host  had  left  us,  "  now  you  know  my 
father." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  "  I  cannot 
presume  to  say  that  I  know  him  in  the 
very  least." 

Hood  laughed  his  dry  laugh.  "  You 
do  not  know  him?"  he  said.  "  No.  No 
more  do  I. 

"  He  is  not  exactly  the  sort  of  man  you 
would  choose  for  a  father,  is  he  ?  "  he 


aeorge  Doofc's  jfatber  107 

asked,  as  I  made  no  reply  to  his  last 
remark. 

"  It  is  not  a  choice  that  is  often  given 
one." 

"  What  I  cannot  quite  make  out,"  he 
said,  "  is  how  far  I  am  to  blame  for  my 
father  being  as  he  is." 

"No?"  I  said.  "I  do  not  quite 
understand." 

"  Naturally.  I  will  explain.  In  the  first 
place  I  must  tell  you — what  will  surprise 
you — that  my  father  is  a  man  of  a  fear- 
fully violent  temper.  He  controls  it,  up 
to  a  point,  under  an  appearance  of  perfect 
immobility  of  feature  and  expression ; 
but  when  that  point  is  passed  he  loses 
control  utterly.  His  temper  gets  abso- 
lute possession  of  him.  It  really  is  like  a 
demoniacal  possession.  Unhappily  for 
me,  and  for  him — not  unhappily  perhaps 
for  her — my  mother  died  when  I  was 
born,  and  I  was  left  with  him,  his  only 
child,  for  him  to  educate.  Well,  you  can 
perhaps  imagine  the  life  better  than  I  can 
describe  it.  There  were  times  when  he 
was  kind  to  me.  Indeed  he  was  generally 


io8  <$eorae  Iboo&'s  jfatber 

kind  to  me,  for  I  believe  that  he  was  really 
fond  of  me,  after  his  manner.  But  then 
there  were  frequent  gusts  of  temper,  of 
fearful,  ungovernable  temper,  paroxysms 
in  which  he  was  really  not  responsible  ; 
for  the  time  being  he  was  a  madman,  and 
I  have  always  thought  that  it  was  quite  a 
chance  that  he  never  murdered  me  in  one 
of  those  moods.  And  all  provoked — at 
least  when  I  was  the  cause  of  them — 
by  some  really  quite  innocent  childish 
naughtiness,  or  even  in  some  cases  by 
some  naughtiness  of  which  he  only  sup- 
posed that  I  had  been  guilty,  although  in 
reality  I  never  had.  Those  paroxysms, 
I  fancy,  as  much  as  anything,  were  the 
cause  of  his  sufferings  and  delicacy ;  he 
suffers  fearfully  at  times  from  angina 
pectoris,  and  his  heart  is  always  weak. 
Well,  the  effect  of  it  all  on  my  own 
character  I  dare  say  you  can  understand." 

"  You  must  have  been  terribly  afraid 
of  him,"  I  said. 

"  Terribly — that  is  the  word — terribly 
afraid  of  him.  It  almost  makes  me  shud- 
der, even  now  that  I  am  a  grown  man 


(Beorge  Tboofc's  jfatber  109 

and  could  break  him  in  two,  poor  father, 
with  my  one  hand,  to  think  how  fearfully 
I  was  afraid  of  him.  What  should  you 
say,"  he  asked  abruptly,  "  were  the  chief 
features  of  my  character  ?  " 

The  answer  was  a  delicate  one ;  and  he 
seemed  to  realize  that  I  must  find  it  so, 
for  without  making  much  pause  for  my 
reply  he  supplied  it  for  himself.  "  I  will 
tell  you — indecision  and  obstinacy." 

"  I  don't  think  you  are  treating  yourself 
quite  kindly,"  I  objected. 

"  At  all  events  I  am  treating  myself 
justly,  or  endeavoring  to,"  he  persisted. 
"  It  is  difficult  perhaps  to  know  oneself, 
but  I  think  I  can  see  into  my  own  charac- 
ter fairly  well,  although  now  and  again,  I 
am  bound  to  admit,  it  gives  me  surprises 
— occasionally,  surprises  by  its  impulses 
towards  nobility  ;  more  often  by  its  unex- 
pected abominations  and  meannesses." 

"  I  expect  that  is  the  case  with  most  of 
us,"  I  said. 

"  My  fear  of  my  father  had  one  very 
natural,  and  I  suppose  inevitable,  effect, 
and  that  is  that  it  made  a  liar  of  me.  I 


no  (Beorae  Tfooofc's  jfatber 

lied,  as  to  what  I  had  done  or  had  not 
done,  in  order  to  escape  his  anger,  and 
often  I  succeeded  in  escaping  it.  But 
often  again  I  was  found  out,  and  then 
it  was  terrible.  It  is  then  that  I  wonder 
sometimes  that  he  did  not  kill  me.  Of 
course,  when  my  reputation  as  a  liar  was 
established  in  his  mind,  there  was  no  hope 
for  me.  Nothing  that  I  did  was  right, 
nothing  that  I  said  was  not  suspected.  If 
I  had  been  of  a  harder,  less  sensitive 
character,  I  should  less  often  have  caused 
him  anger,  I  think,  and  perhaps  in  that 
way  I  have  to  consider  myself  in  some 
degree  responsible  for  aggravating  his 
sufferings." 

"  It  seems  to  me  you  are  too  self-criti- 
cal," I  said. 

"  Goodness  me  !  "  he  exclaimed  irrita- 
bly. "  Do  you  suppose  I  do  not  know 
that  ?  Have  you  only  just  found  it  out  ? 
It  has  been  my  curse  through  life,  the 
reason  of  all  my  indecisions — this  fatal 
habit  of  self-criticism,  introspection,  doubt 
of  my  own  motives,  and  all  the  miserable 
train  that  follows.  Amongst  that  train  is 


Oeoroe  "fcooD's  jfatber  m 

the  occasional  fit  of  obstinacy — not  in  the 
least  because  one  sees  clearly  that  the 
course  in  which  one  persists  is  so  emi- 
nently right  (often  indeed  one  sees  quite 
clearly  that  it  is  wrong),  but  simply  as 
a  kind  of  disgusted  revolt  and  reaction 
from  one's  indecisions.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  delude  oneself  into  the  idea  that  one  is 
strong — rather  as  a  weak  man  physically 
(my  father  let  us  say)  may  clench  his  fist 
and  feel  his  biceps  to  try  to  give  himself 
the  idea  that  he  is  not  a  weakling  after 
all." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  have  taken 
one  fairly  decisive  step  in  your  life,  at  all 
events,"  I  said. 

"You  mean  my — Gracia?" 

I  nodded.  "  Of  course,"  he  said,  re- 
suming his  parable  without  further  atten- 
tion to  my  interruption — "  of  course,  as  I 
grew  up,  the  absolute  physical  fear  of  my 
father  passed  away — it  seems  absurd,  does 
it  not  ?  to  speak  of  physical  fear  of  any- 
thing so  delicately  frail  as  he  is — but  all 
the  consequences  on  my  own  character 
remained.  I  was  introspective,  as  I  have 


H2  0eor0e  Iboofc's  tfatber 

said,  ultra-sensitive,  prone  to  endless  ex- 
amination of  my  own  motives.  There 
were  comparatively  few  outbreaks  of  tem- 
per on  my  father's  part  of  which  I  was 
not  the  cause,  until  the  most  fearful  of 
them  all  arrived  as  a  consequence — I  sup- 
pose a  most  natural  consequence  —  of 
my  telling  him  that  I  was  married  to 
Gracia." 

"You  told  him— that?" 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  fully  understanding  the 
significance  of  my  question.  "  I  told  him 
-that." 

"  Naturally,"  he  resumed,  "  I  had  told 
him  nothing  beforehand.  What  would 
have  been  the  good  ?  It  would  merely 
have  meant  outbursts  of  passion  very  bad 
for  him,  and  certainly  of  no  use  or  pleas- 
ure to  me.  Besides,  there  was  not  much 
4  beforehand.'  I  went  into  this,  as  into 
most  of  the  other  important  things  of  my 
life,  almost  without  intending  it,  without 
calculation  (or  at  least,  if  not  that,  for 
I  had  calculated  the  pros  and  the  cons 
over  and  over  again,  without  definite  re- 
solve). I  was  hurried  into  it,  or  I  hur- 


's  ffatber  113 

ried  myself  into  it,  at  the  last.  I  told 
him  nothing  beforehand." 

"  And  then  you  told  him  that — that 
you  were  married  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  told  him  that.  Again  I  hardly 
knew,  I  had  not  made  up  my  mind,  what 
precisely  I  should  tell  him  ;  I  hardly  knew 
even  whether  it  was  right  to  call  it  mar- 
riage. It  was,  after  all,  a  form  of  mar- 
riage ;  I  recognized  it  as  being  as  sacred 
as  I  could  recognize  any  other  form  to 
be.  You  will  say,  again,  that  means 
'  not  sacred  at  all ! '  You  are  a  scoffer. 
At  all  events  I  told  him  I  was  married — 
it  seemed  simpler  to  state  it  so,  at  start- 
ing ;  there  were  such  difficulties  about 
explaining  exactly  what  had  taken  place. 
So  I  stated  it,  meaning,  so  far  as  I  had  a 
meaning  in  my  mind,  to  clear  up  the  posi- 
tion afterwards ;  and  then  he  gave  me 
little  chance  to  speak — his  passion  was  so 
fearful  and  so  voluble — and  of  such  chance 
as  he  did  give  me  to  explain  I  was  not 
much  inclined  to  avail  myself,  because  he 
made  the  position  impossible  for  me. 
He  told  me  he  would  disown  me  altogether 

8 


H4          (Beorae  Iboofc's  ffatber 

unless  I  cast  off  this  wife — '  this  vagrant, 
this  tramp,'  so  on,  and  so  on — told  me  he 
would  cut  me  out  of  his  will,  and  so  on. 
In  a  word,  my  pride  was  roused  ;  one  of 
those  fits  of  stubborn  obstinacy  which  are 
the  reactions  of  a  naturally  weak  nature 
took  me.  I  shut  my  mouth,  and  to  this 
day  he  believes  I  am  married  to  Gracia  in 
the  firmest  legal  bond." 

"  But  he  has  not  disavowed  you  ? " 
I  said. 

"  Formally,  no.  You  see  the  terms  we 
are  on.  As  a  son,  he  has  practically  dis- 
avowed me.  As  an  acquaintance,  he 
tolerates  me  still.  I  am  permitted  to  in- 
vite myself  here,  to  invite  a  friend  here — 
you  have  seen  our  welcome  !  But  he  has 
entirely  cut  me  out  of  his  will,  except  to 
the  extent  of  five  hundred  a  year  which 
is  settled  on  me ;  and  my  present  allow- 
ance is  five  hundred  a  year.  Before,  be- 
fore I  told  him  of  my  '  marriage,'  it  was 
practically  anything  I  pleased.  He  is  a 
very  rich  man." 

"  And  whom  is  his  money  to  go 
to?" 


Oeorge  1boot>'s  ffatber  us 

George  Hood  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"  Can't  say — home  for  lost  dogs." 

"  But  if  you  were  to  tell  him  you  were 
not  married  ?  " 

"  That  is  just  it.  That  is  just  it.  That 
is  just  what  I  brought  you  down  here  to 
consult  you  about.  What  if  I  were  to 
tell  him  I  were  not  married  ?  What 
then?  And  could  I  tell  him  so?" 

"  Of  course  you  could  tell  him  so,"  I 
replied.  "  Would  it  not  be  the  truth  ?  " 

4t  Would  it  not  be  the  truth  ?  Yes. 
But  would  it  not  be  an  infamy — towards 
Gracia,  an  infamy.  Tell  me  that,  my 
friend.  Tell  me  the  truth." 

"  Do  you  think  that  a  man  commonly 
wants  the  truth  when  he  asks  it  of  you 
like  that?" 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  want,"  he  cried 
desperately.  I  want  help — help." 

"  I  suppose  you  know  why  you  have 
come  down  here  just  now  ?  "  I  said. 

"  No,"  he  replied,  "  I  don't." 

"  And  why  you  have  brought  me  down 
with  you  ?  " 

"  No." 


n6          <Beor0e  Tboofc's  jfatber 

"  Then  I  will  tell  you.  You  have  come 
down  here  in  order  to  tell  your  father  you 
are  not  married,  and  you  have  brought  me 
down  with  you  in  order  that  I  may  tell  you 
you  are  right  in  doing  so." 

"  Is  all  that  so  ?  "  he  asked,  searching  in 
his  mind  to  see  if  he  found  there  what  I 
told  him.  He  did  not  deny  it. 

"  And  do  you  know  why  it  is  that  you 
have  come  down  just  at  this  time,  after  so 
many  years  of  silence,  to  tell  your  father 
that  you  are  free  and  not  married  ? "  I 
was  determined  to  spare  him  nothing,  so 
that  he  never  should  plead  later  that  he 
had  acted,  or  that  I  had  advised  him,  in 
ignorance  of  his  motives. 

He  did  not  answer  this  question  audibly, 
but  turned  his  head  away  and  shook  it. 
He  knew  the  answer  perfectly,  but  I  had 
to  put  it  into  words  for  him  :  "  It  is  be- 
cause you  no  longer  wish  to  think  of 
yourself  as  married.  It  is  because  you 
wish  to  think  of  yourself  as  free.  It  is 
because  " — I  hesitated  a  moment,  for  this 
last  was  a  hard  thing  to  have  to  say  to  a 
man,  and  one  could  not  tell  how  he  might 


(Beorge  fsoo&'s  jfatber  117 

take  it — "  it  is  because  you  wish  to  be  put 
into  a  position,  financially,  to  be  able  to 
marry." 

I  thought  for  an  instant  that  he  was 
about  to  resent  my  words.  He  started 
in  indignation  ;  but  then  his  indignation 
was  quelled  by  the  absolute  truth  of  my 
accusation.  He  gave  a  helpless  groan. 

"  It  is  quite  true,"  he  said,  "  quite  true. 
That  is  exactly  the  despicable  kind  of 
thing  I  am." 

"  And  now,"  I  said,  "  now  that  we  have 
established  that  fact  so  pleasantly,  and 
are  under  no  delusions  as  to  what  we  are 
talking  about,  now  I  will  give  you  my  ad- 
vice on  the  matter,  since  you  have  asked 
it.  It  is  the  advice  that  you  wish,  the 
advice  that  you  will  take ;  for  it  is  ad- 
vice to  follow  the  course  that  you  would 
have  taken  whether  my  advice  had  been 
for  or  against  it ;  it  is  that  you  should 
go  to  your  father  and  tell  him  the  truth, 
and  the  whole  truth.  Tell  him,  if  you 
like,  that  the  reason  you  did  not  tell  it 
him  long  ago  was  that  you  regarded  the 
bond  as  sacred — equally  binding  with  a 


us          (Beorae  tfooo&'s  ffatber 

marriage  ceremony  at  the  altar.  If  you 
do  not  suppose  that  he  will  listen  with 
sufficient  forbearance  for  you  to  get  the 
whole  tale  told  succinctly,  then  I  should 
be  inclined  to  write  it  all.  The  great 
thing  is  to  make  sure  that  now,  at  last,  he 
should  be  put  in  possession  of  the  whole 
story,  all  clearly  set  out,  with  no  dark 
or  mysterious  corners  left  in  it.  Let 
there  be,  so  far  as  possible,  an  end  of 
all  misunderstanding.  That  is  my  advice 
to  you,  and  it  is  advice,  as  I  say,  that  you 
will  take." 

"  You  know  a  great  deal  about  me,"  he 
said  thoughtfully. 

"  There  is  a  good  deal  more  that  I 
don't  know — that  I  should  like  to  know," 
I  replied. 

"  Heavens  and  earth,  I  should  hope 
there  is  !  It  would  be  a  dreadful  thing  if 
a  man's  soul  gave  up  the  whole  stock  of 
its  secrets  to  any  man,  or  woman  either. 
Even  to  itself  it  has  secret  places.  The 
heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  it  has 
been  said ;  but  the  heart  has  secrets  that 
it  does  not  tell  even  to  its  owner. 


George  Iboofc's  jfatber  119 

"  Apart  from  the  question  of  motive, 
however,"  he  went  on,  as  I  found  no 
ready  reply  to  these  philosophical  com- 
ments, "you  think  I  should  do  right  to 
tell  my  father  that  I  am  not,  strictly  and 
legally  speaking,  married  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  would  do  right,"  I  said 
decidedly.  "  Indeed  I  am  sure  of  it — 
from  every  point  of  view,  right.  What 
has  not  been  right  is  that  you  should  ever 
have  told  him,  or  should  ever  have  al- 
lowed him  to  believe,  that  you  were  mar- 
ried. That  is  where  the  mistake  has 
been." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  he  said.  "  I  have 
known  it  all  along,  really.  Of  course  it 
has  been  only  my  confounded  pride — false 
pride,  no  doubt,  and  obstinacy — that  has 
prevented  my  telling  him  long  ago.  It 
gave  me  a  kind  of  satisfaction  to  let  him 
go  on  in  this  mistake  that  gave  him  so 
much  annoyance.  There  is  no  doubt  of 
it  that  at  times  the  devil  has  possession 
of  me." 

"  And  keeps  possession  for  some  while, 
as  it  seems,"  I  said. 


120          <5eorge  Iboofc's  ffatber 

"  But  to-morrow  I  will  tell  him — yes,  to- 
morrow. It  will  be  interesting  at  all 
events,  will  it  not,  to  see  how  he  takes  it  ? 
You  will  not  be  bored  with  your  visit,  I 
think." 

"  Certainly  I  shall  not,"  I  replied  with 
truth.  "  I  am  very  greatly  interested." 

"  And  you  had  expected  to  be  very 
badly  bored,  had  you  not  ?  " 

"You  seem  to  know  a  good  deal  about 
me  too,"  I  said,  laughing. 

"There  is  one  point,"  I  said  finally, 
"which  no  doubt  you  have  considered. 
When  you  avow  yourself  unmarried  you 
avow  at  the  same  time  a  liaison  of  a 
highly  irregular  nature.  How  do  you 
suppose  that  your  father  will  be  affected 
by  that  news  ?  " 

"It  will  affect  him  not  at  all,"  Hood 
rejoined  with  confidence.  "  His  views  of 
morality  are  far  from  rigid.  I  think,  if 
they  had  been  more  orthodox,  or  if  my 
mother  had  lived,  I  might  perhaps  have 
hesitated  more  before  I — engaged  myself 
to  Gracia." 

"  Ah,  well,"  I  said,  "  from  the  point  of 


<5eor0e  fcoofc's  jfatber  121 

view  of  what  you  have  to  tell  your  father, 
that  is  all  as  it  should  be  wished.  It 
removes  a  difficulty." 

Then  we  began  to  talk  of  matters  that 
do  not  touch  the  story,  and  so  the  time 
passed  till  we  went  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  X 

"  POOR   GRACIA  ! " 

THE  morrow  was  a  Sunday,  a  warm 
gray  day  with  a  colorless  sky  low  down 
over  the  land.  In  the  morning  I  wan- 
dered out  from  the  house  over  the  stretch 
of  links  by  which  the  pasture  lands  were 
bordered,  and  so  to  a  low  range  of  sand- 
hills covered  with  the  yellow  marram.  The 
tide  was  out,  and  long  sand-flats  stretched 
away  to  the  rippling  waters  of  the  English 
Channel.  The  eerie  cry  of  the  seafowl 
came  from  the  flats  as  the  waders  went 
hither  and  thither,  seeking  their  insect 
food  in  the  soft  ooze.  As  I  lay  in  a  con- 
templative mood  on  the  sand-hills  I  could 
imagine  my  friend's  life  as  a  solitary  boy, 
with  no  mother,  a  father  whom  he  dreaded, 
not  without  reason,  and  who  was  wholly 
unsympathetic  with  him.  I  could  imagine 


"poor  ©racial"  123 

his  long  lonely  rambles  among  the  sand- 
hills facing  the  flat  shore,  and  the  in- 
fluence that  such  surroundings  would  have 
on  the  mind  of  a  sensitive  child  and  boy, 
and  therein  seemed  to  find  the  key  of 
much  that  was  enigmatical  in  the  charac- 
ter of  this  friend.  Our  host  had  not  ap- 
peared at  breakfast,  and  George  Hood 
had  told  me  that  he  seldom  left  his  room 
till  mid-day.  I  had  gone  out  by  myself 
in  order  to  leave  father  and  son  together, 
and  give  every  opportunity  for  the  ex- 
planation which  I  did  not  doubt  the  son 
would  take  this  occasion  of  making,  and 
speculated  vaguely  on  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  likely  to  be  received.  That 
it  would  be  acceptable,  on  the  whole,  was 
scarcely  to  be  doubted ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  any 
parent,  and  especially  one  of  so  violent 
a  temper  as  Hood  had  represented  his 
father  to  be,  would  feel  injured  by  the 
discovery  that  he  had  been  for  so  long 
the  victim  of  a  delusion,  of  a  mistake,  of  a 
false  statement. 

My   anxiety   was   much   relieved  as   I 


124  "fltoor  6racfa!" 

approached  the  house  on  my  return  to  see 
father  and  son  walking  together  on  the 
terrace,  the  former  leaning  on  the  arm  of 
the  latter,  evidently  in  perfect  amity. 
My  host  bade  me  "  Good  morning  "  with 
a  friendliness  that  was  in  marked  contrast 
with  the  icy  courtesy  of  his  manner  on 
the  previous  evening.  He  was  equally 
charming  and  friendly  during  luncheon, 
which  followed  almost  immediately,  so 
that  it  hardly  needed  the  assurance  which 
George  Hood  gave  me  in  course  of  an 
afternoon  stroll  over  the  links  to  convince 
me  that  the  father  had  received  the  news 
of  his  son's  freedom  from  a  bond  which 
he  could  not  but  look  on  in  the  nature  of 
a  misalliance  with  so  much  relief  that  he 
readily  pardoned  the  deception  in  which 
he  had  believed  for  so  many  years.  His 
readiness  to  pardon  it  had  made  no  little 
impression  on  his  son,  who  was  inclined 
to  see  in  it  an  almost  pathetic  evidence  of 
the  father's  loss  of  force. 

"  I  could  hardly  believe,"  he  said,  in 
narrating  the  interview  to  me,  "that  I 
was  talking  to  the  same  man  that  used  to 


"poor  (Bracia!"  125 

flare  out  at  me  so,  only  a  year  or  two  ago. 
When  I  had  explained  all  the  truth  to 
him,  to  which  he  listened  with  perfect 
patience,  I  tried  to  make  him  understand 
the  motive,  if  indeed  I  had  any  motive 
clearly  intelligible  even  to  myself,  that 
had  induced  me  to  leave  him  in  this  delu- 
sion ;  but  he  cut  me  short  by  saying 
in  the  most  affectionate  way,  '  Oh  yes, 
George,  my  dear  boy,  you  need  not  ex- 
plain it  all  to  me.  I  know  that  I  have 
often  been  a  most  impossible  parent  to 
you.  I  know  it  well.  I  can  understand 
your  difficulty.'  I  seem  to  myself  to 
know  my  father  now,  as  he  really  is,  for 
the  first  time,  and  it  frightens  me  to  see 
him  so.  Nothing  before  has  ever  made 
me  feel  so  strongly  how  ill  he  must  be, 
how  changed  he  is.  He  reminds  me  of 
some  extinct  volcano,  with  all  its  fire  and 
fury  quenched." 

"  Does  it  not  rather  tend  to  show  that 
he  is  stronger,  that  he  has  a  better  con- 
trol over  himself  and  his  irritable  nerves  ?  " 
I  argued. 

Hood  shook  his  head  sorrowfully.     "  I 


126  "poor  ©racial'' 

wish  I  could  see  it  in  that  light,"  he  said. 
"  But  no,  it  seems  to  me  almost  as  if  the 
hand  of  death  were  already  upon  him  ;  as 
if  he  had  lost  so  much  of  his  vital  force 
— of  his  former  self." 

Do  what  I  would,  I  could  not  argue 
my  friend  out  of  this  mournful  and  almost 
morbid  view  of  his  father's  state — a  father 
for  whom,  as  it  seemed,  he  was  only  just 
beginning  to  be  able  to  feel  any  real  filial 
affection.  He  had  wasted  few  words,  as 
Hood  had  foreseen,  in  reprobating  the  ir- 
regular mode  of  life  which  his  son  had 
followed. 

The  rest  of  the  afternoon  and  evening 
passed  in  the  most  pleasant  manner,  the 
mutual  relations  between  father  and  son 
being  far  more  cordial  and  natural  than  on 
the  previous  evening;  and  it  seemed  to 
me  as  if  the  host  was  anxious  to  show 
particular  kindness  to  myself,  in  part,  as  I 
thought,  to  make  up  for  his  rather  frigid 
reception,  and  in  part  as  if  attributing  it  to 
my  good  offices  that  his  son  had  been 
brought  into  such  a  state  of  indifferent 
grace  as  to  be  able  to  avow  the  true  posi- 


"poor  Oracia!"  127 

tion  between  himself  and  Gracia.  The 
kindliness  of  his  manner  I  interpreted  as  a 
tacit  recognition  and  returning  of  thanks 
for  the  service  which  he  believed  me  to 
have  rendered.  I  knew,  of  course,  that  I 
had  done  nothing  in  this  respect  to  merit 
his  gratitude,  for  I  was  convinced  that 
George  Hood  had  fully  made  up  his  mind 
to  apprise  his  father  of  the  true  state  of 
affairs,  even  had  my  advice  been  opposed 
to  his  doing  so.  But,  in  fine,  the  visit 
that  had  begun  under  such  chilling  auspices 
terminated  in  very  friendly  fashion  to  the 
mutual  satisfaction  of  all  the  parties  to  it. 
I  had  rather  expected  George  Hood 
would  stay  on  for  a  day  or  two  with  the 
father  whom  he  seemed  to  have  discovered 
now  for  the  first  time,  but  instead  of  doing 
so  he  accompanied  me  back  to  town,  ac- 
cording to  our  original  programme.  I 
understood,  however,  that  he  had  prom- 
ised to  come  down  again  to  visit  his  father 
at  the  next  "week-end."  On  the  way  to 
London  in  the  train  we  hardly  exchanged 
a  word,  each  of  us  keeping  to  his  own  cor- 
ner and  his  own  reflections.  What  George 


128  "poor  (Bracia!" 

Hood's  may  have  been  I  could  not  know, 
although  I  fancied  that  I  could  shrewdly 
speculate.  For  the  keynote  of  my  own  re- 
flections, it  may  be  expressed  most  briefly 
and  most  accurately  in  two  words — "  Poor 
Gracia!" 


CHAPTER  XI 

IN  THE  NEW  FOREST 

A  WEEK  or  two  later  the  wheels  of  happy 
chance  took  me,  on  a  bicycle,  to  that  wild 
garden  land  of  England  which  we  call  the 
New  Forest.  Thither  I  went  by  chance, 
or  in  search  of  pleasant  scenes  and  good 
roads  for  the  bicycle,  but  I  may  admit, 
without  prejudice,  that  I  was  attracted  in 
part  by  the  hope  that  I  might  hear  news 
of  the  caravan  and  George  Hood's  wife — 
for  thus  in  my  mind  I  still  would  call  her 
— that  marvellously  lovely  lady.  I  knew, 
from  what  Hood  himself  had  told  me,  that 
his  household  had  been  moving,  in  its  lei- 
surely fashion,  westward,  with  "  the  for- 
est," as  all  the  wandering  community  call 
it,  as  its  bourne  ;  and,  as  I  expected,  a  little 
conversation  with  some  of  the  van  folk 
who  frequent  the  highways  of  the  New 
129 


130  Un  tbe  IRew  forest 

Forest  in  such  numbers  soon  gave  me  the 
news  I  wanted,  and  indicated  where  I 
should  find  the  party  in  which  I  was  in- 
terested. I  did  not  stay  to  ask  myself  the 
nature  of  that  interest.  I  had  a  desire, 
that  was  not  wonderful,  to  look  once  more 
on  the  most  beautiful  face  that  my  eyes 
had  ever  seen,  and  promised  myself  some 
pleasure  in  paying  a  call  of  ceremony. 

The  way  that  had  been  indicated  to  me 
led  me  up  from  my  headquarters  in  Lynd- 
hurst  through  the  sylvan  road  until  it 
comes  out,  just  opposite  the  path  to  the 
historic  Rufus  Stone,  on  that  highway 
leading  from  Winchester  to  Ringwood, 
along  the  watershed  known  as  Vinney 
Ridge.  Here,  at  some  comparative  alti- 
tude, one  is  away  from  the  woodland 
scenes,  on  a  moorland  purple  with  heather 
and  bright  with  the  bloom  of  gorse,  and  on 
either  side  of  the  road  is  a  splendid  vista 
over  the  trees,  successive  distances  reced- 
ing farther  and  farther  from  the  eye,  till 
southward  one  can  see  the  blue  outline  of 
the  Isle  of  Wight.  Here  and  there  the 
road  dips  with  sharp  depression  into  a 


Urt  tbe  IRew  JF crest  131 

little  valley  carved  by  one  of  the  south- 
ward-running streams,  and  in  one  of  these 
depressions  I  saw,  beneath  the  birch  trees 
that  fringe  and  mark  the  course  of  the 
rivulets,  an  establishment  familiar  to  my 
recollection,  of  two  caravans  and  a  tent, 
the  blue  smoke  eddying  up  among  the 
graceful  foliage  of  the  birches,  and  shroud- 
ing the  scene  in  a  mysterious  and  beautiful 
haze. 

The  vans,  beside  which  the  horses  were 
grazing,  were  remote  by  some  thirty  or 
forty  yards  from  the  road,  sufficiently  far 
to  receive  only  an  attenuated  sprinkling 
of  the  dust  raised  by  the  passing  vehicles, 
yet  near  enough  to  see  all  the  life  and 
movement  of  the  road.  The  stream  ran 
down  with  a  gurgle  beneath  the  road 
bridge  and  on  past  the  encampment,  for 
the  most  part  hidden  by  the  masses  of  the 
bracken  that  grows  so  tall  and  luxuriant  in 
that  genial  climate.  Had  I  been  suffi- 
ciently acquainted  with  George  Hood's 
peculiar  whistle  I  think  I  should  have  used 
it  to  announce  my  presence,  as  I  leaned 
my  bicycle  against  the  low  parapet  of  the 


132  Hn  tbe  mew  jforest 

bridge,  and  made  my  way  through  the 
bracken  towards  the  vans.  I  did  not 
however,  even  so,  arrive  without  due  notice 
given,  for  I  was  still  at  a  distance  of 
twenty  paces  or  so  from  the  nearest  of  the 
vans,  when  the  well-remembered  cry  of  the 
big  cockatoo  came  to  my  ears  from  some 
hidden  depths  of  the  forest,  and  simul- 
taneously, as  if  the  cry  was  understood  as 
a  signal  of  alarm,  Gracia  came  to  the  door 
of  the  van  and  stood  shading  her  eyes 
from  the  sun  as  I  came  towards  her. 
With  the  sunlight  thus  full  upon  her,  I 
could  see  her  features  more  plainly  than 
she  could  discern  mine,  and  not  until  I 
was  within  a  yard  or  two  did  her  face  show 
recognition.  Then  she  exclaimed  quickly  : 
"  Oh,  it  is  you  !  I  am  so  glad  to  see  you 
— and  George  ?  " 

There  was  an  eagerness  of  interroga- 
tion as  she  asked  the  question,  the  slightest 
possible  flush,  and  a  look  of  expectation 
on  her  features  that  were  so  seldom  quick- 
ened from  their  perfectly  beautiful  repose, 
that  came  to  me  like  a  revelation,  and  made 
my  heart  ache  that  I  was  obliged  to  an- 


tn  tbe  IRew  ^forest  133 

swer  :     "  No.     I  am  alone.     George  is  not 
here." 

I  felt  grateful  to  my  lucky  lack  of  ability 
to  imitate  the  whistle  of  her  husband,  which 
alone  had  prevented  my  using  it  as  I  ap- 
proached. As  it  was,  her  disappointment 
was  sufficiently  keen — for  the  moment 
only.  The  next  instant  the  anxious  flush 
had  passed,  and  the  face  had  resumed  its 
normal  expression  of  perfect  content,  per- 
fect health,  perfect  beauty.  But  I  had 
found  out  what  I  wanted  to  know.  That 
slight  access  of  excitement,  so  slight  that 
only  in  a  woman  so  reposeful  as  my  friend's 
most  beautiful  wife  would  it  have  been  sig- 
nificant at  all,  had  said  its  say.  It  had 
told  me  that  the  man  she  expected  to  ac- 
company me  was  the  man — I  will  not  say 
the  man  she  loved,  because  that  is  such  a 
vague  word,  with  so  many  meanings,  and 
because  love  is  such  a  different  thing  at 
the  heart  of  one  woman  and  of  another. 
I  will  rather  say  the  man  that  mattered, 
the  man  for  whom  her  pulses  went  quicker, 
the  man  on  whom  her  thoughts  dwelt. 
That  is  a  better  way  of  putting  it  than 


134  fln  tbe  IRew  forest 

to  say,  simply  and  complexly,  "  loved  " — 
which  might  be  taken  to  mean  anything, 
everything,  or  nearly  nothing.  George 
Hood  was  the  man  who  obsessed  her  heart 
and  mind.  I  saw  that,  and  the  perception 
gave  me  a  pang  as  I  thought  of  my  latest 
talks  with  this  man.  My  latest  talk  of  all 
had  been  in  the  train  coming  up  from  his 
father's  house.  We  had  not  met  since. 

After  the  first  eager  question,  whether 
George  was  with  me,  she  did  not  mention 
him  again,  except  incidentally.  She  still 
had  her  wonderful  gift  of  asking  no  ques- 
tions, of  appearing  entirely  free  of  natural 
curiosity.  It  seemed  to  me,  as  I  gazed 
upon  her  marvellously  perfect  face,  that 
while  it  had  certainly  lost  nothing  of  its 
perfection  there  was  a  trifle  less  fulness  in 
the  oval  contour,  a  shade  less  brilliancy  in 
the  still  extraordinarily  brilliant  coloring. 
We  talked  chiefly  of  her  doings,  and  of 
the  daily  small  adventures  and  incidents 
of  their  leisurely  journey  from  the  forest 
of  Ashdown  to  the  New  Forest.  The  life 
struck  me  again,  as  it  had  struck  me  be- 
fore, with  a  sense  of  the  marvellous  absence 


Hn  tbe  IRew  jforest  135 

of  any  respect  or  care  for  time.  There 
was  none  of  that  conception  of  a  task  to 
be  accomplished,  which  harasses,  even 
while  it  dignifies,  the  daily  life  of  most 
civilized  men  ;  there  was  no  impatience. 
These  people  seemed  to  have  entered  al- 
ready on  an  eternity,  of  which  really,  so 
far  as  we  are  able  to  grasp  the  idea,  the 
essence  must  be  just  this  very  absence  of 
the  sense  of  time,  absence  of  all  sense  that 
the  night  cometh  when  no  man  may  work. 
Yet  the  only  attempt  at  explanation  of 
eternity  that  we  can  give,  to  ourselves  or 
to  others,  is,  as  George  Hood  had  observed 
to  me,  to  say  that  it  is  immensely  long 
time. 

So  far  I  had  been  fortunate  in  finding 
Gracia  by  herself  ;  but  now  from  the 
gloom  of  the  forest  came  an  enchanting 
procession,  heralded,  as  the  coming  of 
Pan  should  be,  with  melody.  First  came 
Tio,  in  his  picturesque  dress,  with  the 
fiddle,  bowing  as  he  walked  ;  then,  follow- 
ing, the  brown-legged,  bare-legged  boy, 
waddling  slowly,  in  its  first  beginnings 
of  a  walk ;  finally,  waddling  likewise  and 


136  Hn  tbe  Hew  jforest 

intensely  comic,  but  as  grave  as  either  of 
the  other  two,  the  white  cockatoo  nodding 
its  head  and  alternately  raising  and  drop- 
ping its  crest  to  the  pulsing  time  of  the 
music. 

This  was  the  noble  procession  that 
should  have  continued  its  course  right  up 
to  the  steps  of  the  van  ;  but  on  sight  of 
me  Tio  stopped,  and  the  boy  stopped,  and 
the  cockatoo  stopped,  all  with  a  single 
assent,  as  if  I  had  been  the  head  of  Me- 
dusa to  turn  them  all  to  stone.  When 
they  saw  who  I  was,  the  order  of  march, 
slightly  changed,  was  resumed.  Tio  con- 
tinued his  walk,  but  ceased  his  playing. 
The  boy  crammed  a  fat  hand  into  his 
mouth,  to  stop  shyness,  and  came  forward 
hidden  by  Tio.  The  cockatoo  took  up 
the  part  of  band,  given  over  by  Tio, 
screaming  "  Ge-orge,  Ge-orge,  Ge-orge," 
at  the  top  of  its  voice,  apparently  asso- 
ciating me  with  its  master.  In  this  there 
was  reason,  for  it  was  in  its  master's  com- 
pany that  it  had  seen  me ;  but  it  embar- 
rassed the  situation,  for  the  remark  was  too 
like  that  of  Gracia  at  first  sight  of  me. 


In  tbe  mew  jforest  137 

Behind  the  procession  itself,  hardly  as 
if  belonging  to  it,  but  rather  as  if  only 
unofficially  attached,  another  man  had 
followed,  as  they  came  from  under  the 
trees.  He,  like  the  others,  had  stopped 
on  seeing  me,  but  unlike  the  others,  had 
not  resumed  his  march  when  they  recog- 
nized me.  He  had  gone  off  by  himself 
back  into  the  forest. 

Tio  seemed  pleased  to  meet  me  again, 
and  the  boy  threw  off  his  reserve  and 
took  his  fist  from  his  mouth  as  if  he  knew 
me  for  a  friend.  Only  the  cockatoo  re- 
mained implacable,  now  and  again  croon- 
ing "  Ge-orge  "  to  itself  in  soliloquy,  but 
showing  up  its  crest  in  anger  when  I  ap- 
proached it  to  attempt  a  caress,  as  if  to 
indicate  that  I  was  to  blame  in  not  sup- 
plying its  evident  desire  for  "  George." 
I  felt  that  I  was  so,  too. 

Tio  and  I  talked  long,  over  tobacco,  of 
the  moving  incidents  by  flood  and  field 
that  had  happened  to  them  since  I  had 
last  seen  them,  in  course  of  their  slow 
travel  from  that  forest  of  Ashdown  to  this 
forest  called  New.  He  asked  me  with 


138  Hn  tbe  IRew  jforest 

a  certain  significance  "where  was  Mr. 
Hood?"  and  when  I  had  answered  as 
fully  as  I  could  all  the  many  questions 
implied  in  the  one,  he  asked  no  further 
and  I  had  a  feeling  that  he  was  aggrieved, 
for  Gracia's  sake,  no  doubt,  rather  than 
his  own  ;  but  that  he  was  too  proud — 
again  for  her,  rather  than  himself — to 
make  complaint. 

So,  when  the  bats  began  to  flit,  I  left 
them.  The  cockatoo  had  his  head  be- 
neath his  feathers  ;  the  boy  had  been  put 
to  sleep.  Gracia  waved  me  a  good-bye 
from  the  van  steps,  and  Tio  came  with 
me  to  help  light  the  lantern  of  my  bicycle. 

In  course  of  this  proceeding  my  mind 
reverted  suddenly  to  the  man  whom  I 
had  seen  in  the  rear  of  the  procession 
coming  from  the  forest.  He  had  stopped 
when  the  rest  of  the  procession  halted, 
arrested  by  my  arrival,  but  had  not  come 
forward  with  the  others  when  their  march 
was  resumed.  It  had  seemed  as  if  he  had 
almost  intentionally  turned  back,  that  I 
should  not  observe  him.  I  asked  Tio 
who  the  man  was. 


Hn  tbe  IRew  jforest  139 

"  Oh,"  he  said  indifferently,  "  that  was 
Jim  Lee." 

"Jim  Lee?"  I  replied,  searching  my 
memory. 

"  He  's  the  one  that  came  to  us  in  Ash- 
down  Forest  the  time  you  were  down 
there,"  Tio  explained.  "  The  one  that 
had  lost  all  his  money  buying  a  colt  at 
Groombridge." 

"  I  remember  now,"  I  said,  the  details 
coming  back  to  me.  It  was  no  wonder 
that  I  did  not  recognize  the  man,  for  I 
had  not  seen  his  face  before,  had  only 
heard  his  voice,  which  had  awakened  me 
in  the  early  morning,  bewailing  his  loss. 

"  Did  he  ever  get  his  money  back  ?  "  I 
asked. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Tio.  "You  see  it  was 
like  this — Jim  had  agreed  to  give  fifty 
pound  for  the  colts,  and  the  colts  were 
worth  that,  for  he  had  made  the  bargain 
before  he  got  boozed  ;  but  when  it  came 
to  the  paying,  Jim  knew  he  was  boozed 
then,  so  he  just  gave  all  the  notes  he  had 
to  the  farmer  he  was  buying  the  colts  off, 
and  told  him  to  pay  himself.  The  farmer 


HO  Hn  tbe  Iftew  jforest 

did  that  all  right ;  but,  seeing  the  state 
Jim  was  in,  he  thought  the  best  thing  he 
could  do  was  to  take  care  of  the  notes  for 
him  till  he  came  to  again  ;  so  he  put  the  lot 
in  his  pocket.  Jim  was  in  a  rare  way,  as 
you  may  remember,  when  he  came  to,  but 
he  went  straight  away  back  then  to  the 
farmer  to  see  if  he  could  tell  him  any- 
thing about  the  notes.  Of  course  the 
farmer  knew  he  was  sure  to  do  that. 
The  farmer  put  him  off  for  a  bit,  just  to 
tease  him  and  to  make  him  more  careful 
next  time,  and  then  handed  him  all  the 
notes  over,  barring  the  fifty  for  the  colts." 

"  Is  Jim  Lee  living  with  you — I  mean, 
is  he  staying  with  you  ?  "  I  asked. 

Tio  answered  with  a  little  hesitation. 
"  In  a  way  he  's  staying  with  us,"  he  said. 
"  That  is,  he  's  in  his  own  van,  of  course, 
but  it 's  not  far  off." 

"He  travelled  down  with  you  from 
Ashdown  Forest  ?  "  I  suggested. 

Tio  looked  at  me  suspiciously.  He 
showed  still  more  hesitation  before  he 
answered  this,  but  when  he  did  answer 
he  answered  very  fully.  He  answered 


In  tbe  Hew  jporest  141 

not  only  the  question,  but  all  that  the 
question  seemed  to  him  to  imply,  and 
more  than  I  ever  had  intended  it  to  imply. 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  speaking  with  a  slow  de- 
liberation that  he  intended  to  be  impres- 
sive, and  that  did  not  fail  to  impress  me. 
"He  travelled  with  us  from  Ashdown 
Forest.  Oh,  yes,"  he  went  on,  "  I  know 
what  it  is  you  mean  to  ask — perhaps  what 
Mr.  Hood  sent  you  down  to  ask." 

I  interpolated  that  Mr.  Hood  had  no 
knowledge  of  my  visit,  but  he  continued 
without  paying  any  heed  to  me:  "Jim 
Lee  is  here  often,  and  he  is  not  here 
without  an  object.  He  knows,  as  well  as 
you  know  and  as  well  as  I  know— as  well 
as  every  one  except  that  poor  girl  knows 
—  that  the  marriage  Mr.  Hood  went 
through  with  her  is  no  marriage  at  all, 
here  in  England.  He  knows  that,"  Tio 
went  on,  with  wrath  gathering  in  his  eyes 
and  in  his  voice,  "and  the  best  thing  you 
can  do  is  to  go  back  and  tell  Mr.  Hood 
that  if  he  don't  value  his  own  property 
there 's  other  people  that  does.  You  'd 
better  tell  him  that — perhaps  that  '11  teach 


142  fln  tbe  Hew  jforest 

him."  Tio  wagged  his  head  in  sorrowful 
anger. 

"  But  she  does  n't  care  for  him,  Tio," 
I  said,  with  confidence;  "for  Jim  Lee,  I 
mean." 

"  She  ! "  said  Tio  with  a  tinge  of  scorn  in 
his  voice,  but  I  could  hardly  tell  whether 
it  were  meant  for  her  or  for  the  very 
notion  of  her  caring  for  such  as  Jim  Lee. 
"  She  is  bound  up  heart  and  soul  with 
Mr.  Hood.  He — that  is,  Jim  Lee — has 
offered  her  all  that  a  queen  could  want. 
He  has  four  houses  all  his  own  in  Crew- 
kerne,  and  a  bit  of  freehold  down  outside 
of  Bournemouth  " — Tio  jerked  his  thumb 
southward  to  indicate  the  direction  of  this 
estate  as  he  spoke — "  and  two  vans,  and 
I  should  think  upwards  of  thirty  horses ; 
but  she — she  is  bound  up  heart  and  soul, 
as  I  say,  with  Mr.  Hood." 

I  had  known  it  before  he  told  me.  I 
had  seen  in  her  eyes,  as  we  spoke  of 
George  Hood  together,  that  he  was  the 
man  for  her  that  mattered,  and  that  all 
the  rest  were  nothing  ;  so  it  was  no  more 
than  my  own  previous  conviction  that  Tio 


In  tbe  flew  jf crest  143 

confirmed.  But  the  fact  of  Jim  Lee  in 
the  background  knocking  at  the  door  of 
her  heart  with  the  gifts  that  would  make 
a  queen's  dowry,  of  four  houses — cot- 
tages, they  were  better  to  be  described, 
no  doubt — in  Crewkerne,  the  freehold — 
winter  standing-room  for  a  van — outside 
Bournemouth,  the  vans  and  the  horses — 
all  this  lent  the  dramatic  interest  that 
alone  was  needed  to  complete  the  situa- 
tion ;  and  ruminating  thereon  very  sorrow- 
fully I  followed  the  gleam  of  my  lamp 
along  the  way  that  led  back  to  civilization. 


THE  SECOND  MOOD  AT  ITS  ZENITH 

I  CAME  back  to  London  with  my 
mind  made  up  to  see  George  Hood  and 
hint  to  him,  with  all  the  delicacy  that  the 
case  required,  my  conviction  that  Gracia 
was  suffering  by  his  neglect.  Hood  was 
himself  one  of  those  whom  he  described, 
with  his  turn  for  whimsical  paradox,  as 
"  understanding  what  you  meant  even 
after  you  had  said  it."  Ulsjlair  for  the 
meaning  that  we  try  blunderingly  to  ex- 
press in  words  was  wonderful.  I  had 
spoken  not  ten  words  to  introduce  my 
subject  before  he  knew  all  that  I  had  to 
say  to  him — and  a  good  deal  more  of  what 
I  thought,  but  should  not  be  able  to  say. 
He  changed  the  subject  then  with  an 
abruptness  that  was  equivalent  to  closing 
it,  and  at  once  asked  me  to  dine  with  him 
144 


Ube  Second  flDoofc  at  its  2enitb    145 

and  a  small  party  at  the  Carlton  and  come 
on  for  bridge  in  his  studio  afterwards. 

It  is  no  use  trying  to  describe  that  din- 
ner party.  I  could  describe  that  Carlton 
Restaurant — most  people  know  that  al- 
ready— or  a  Carlton  menu — that  again  is 
hardly  a  novelty — but  what  I  am  unable 
to  describe,  or  give  idea  of,  are  the  humor, 
the  wit,  and  real  brilliancy  of  George 
Hood's  conversation  that  evening.  What 
we  in  England  understand  by  conversation 
is  very  different  from  the  notion  conveyed 
by  the  same  word  in  America,  where,  by- 
the-bye,  they  would  say  that  conversation 
is  dead  in  England — a  lost  art.  With  us  it 
is  a  quick  exchange  of  thought  suggested 
by  thought.  It  is  not  dead ;  where  it  ex- 
ists it  is  very  much  alive  indeed,  but  it 
exists  in  few  places,  principally  at  some 
rather  Bohemian  clubs  and  at  certain 
dinner  tables  in  London,  and  also  (which 
may  not  be  believed  easily)  in  some  provin- 
cial towns.  The  ancient  analogy  of  the  flint 
and  the  steel  comes  in  not  amiss  to  give 
the  hint  of  the  meaning  of  good  conver- 
sation according  to  our  view.  According 


146   ZEbe  SeconD  /IDoofc  at  its  z:enitb 

to  the  American  view,  conversation  has 
more  of  the  character  of  monologue, 
of  oratory,  and  even  includes  anecdote. 
America  says  of  our  conversation  that  it  is 
not  talk,  but  barking.  We  are  sometimes 
apt  to  find  the  American  disposition  to 
oratory  a  bore.  The  facts  are  the  more 
curious  because  respective  national  char- 
acteristics might  have  led  us  to  expect  the 
case  reversed.  Nevertheless  it  was  an 
American,  an  American  lady,  Miss  What- 
man, who  was  the  steel  to  the  flint  of 
George  Hood's  wit  at  his  dinner  party  and 
after. 

According  to  programme,  the  after- 
dinner  time  was  to  be  given  up  to  bridge, 
and  it  is  seldom  that  its  claims  are  ne- 
glected; but  when  we  were  gathered  in 
George  Hood's  wonderful  studio  and  the 
duel  of  wit  (for  mainly  it  resolved  itself 
into  duologue)  between  these  two,  com- 
menced at  the  dinner  table,  was  resumed, 
the  rest  of  the  party  seemed  very  content 
to  leave  the  cards  alone  and  take  the 
rdle  of  audience. 

"Are  they  always  like  this?"  I  asked 


Ube  Second  flDoofc  at  its  Zenitb    147 

one  of  the  guests,  who,  as  I  knew,  must 
often  have  met  Hood  and  Miss  Whatman 
at  the  same  dinner  table. 

"  They  are  always  good,"  he  answered. 
"  I  always  have  said  that  meeting  them 
together  was  the  best  play  in  London. 
But  I  have  never  known  George  as  quick 
as  he  is  to-night.  He  is  putting  out  the 
very  best  of  himself." 

I  had  hardly  expected  any  other  answer. 
It  was  inconceivable  that  it  could  always 
be  thus.  It  was  certain,  too,  that  on  my 
friend's  part,  whom  I  knew  to  be  by  dis- 
position the  most  lazily  dreamy  of  men, 
the  intellectual  effort  must  be  great ;  but 
with  the  words  of  the  reply,  "  he  is  putting 
out  the  very  best  of  himself,"  illumination 
came  to  me,  or  so  I  fancied,  in  a  flash.  I 
seemed  to  understand  all  at  once  the  rea- 
son and  motive  of  this  unusual  effort. 
The  coruscation  of  wit,  as  it  is  called, 
was  a  spectacle  arranged  mainly  for  my 
own  benefit.  When  I  had  thrown  out  the 
advanced  guard  of  my  intended  hints  to 
Hood  on  the  subject  of  Gracia,  he  had  al- 
most immediately  invited  me  to  make  one 


148   Ube  Seconfc  /IDoo&  at  its  Zenitb 

of  this  present  party ;  and  now  I  seemed 
able  to  perceive  the  connection  between 
the  one  and  the  other,  my  own  hints  and 
the  invitation,  which  had  escaped  me  be- 
fore. He  desired,  or  so  I  thought  that  I 
perceived,  that  I  should  see  his  intellect  at 
its  brightest,  as  it  was  capable  of  shining 
in  presence  of  the  sympathetic  brilliance 
of  this  American,  in  order  that  I  might 
realize  the  full  force  of  the  attraction  that 
was  taking  him  from  Gracia  of  the  perfect 
but  soulless  body,  so  that  I  might  perhaps 
give  him  justification  for  yielding  to  an 
attraction  which  developed  in  him  mental 
capacities  of  such  splendor.  And*  with 
that  thought  inevitably  came  a  compara- 
tive rating  of  these  two  women,  each  in 
her  way  so  exceptional,  so  astonishingly 
different. 

The  American  was  an  attractive  woman. 
She  had  the  aristocratic  carriage  that  ap- 
pears to  belong  of  a  common  right  to  the 
cultured  women  of  the  great  republic.  To 
classical  correctness  neither  her  features 
nor  figure  had  even  a  remote  claim.  The 
forehead  was  high  and  narrow ;  the  eyes 


Ube  Second  /IDoofc  at  its  2enitb    149 

were  not  large,  but  arresting  of  the  atten- 
tion with  their  vivacity  of  expression  of 
every  thought  and  feeling ;  the  nose  was 
straight,  too  thinly  cut  for  beauty  ;  the 
mouth  was  small,  but  too  firmly  closed  in 
repose  to  allow  its  lines  to  be  soft  and 
alluring  ;  the  chin  was  remarkable,  long 
and  pointed,  following  a  flat  angle  of  the 
jaw  that  gave  some  suggestion  of  a  snake- 
like  fineness  ;  the  neck  was  slender,  well 
placed  on  the  small,  square  shoulders  ;  the 
figure  finely  slender,  and  the  feet  and 
hands  curiously  small  for  the  height,  which 
was  above  the  medium.  The  ripe-corn- 
colored  hair  was  gathered  in  clusters  high 
on  the  head.  She  was  simply,  but  even  as 
I,  a  man,  could  not  fail  to  see,  perfectly 
dressed,  and  wore  only  enough  jewelry  to 
avoid  the  affectation  of  wearing  none. 

Absently,  as  I  noticed  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  woman  who  now  held  George 
Hood  by  the  charm  of  her  mind  and  that 
other  who  had  held  him  once  by  the  charm 
of  her  body,  I  took  from  the  table  a  manu- 
script book  in  which,  as  it  seemed,  Hood 
jotted  down  any  quotation  that  pleased  or 


150    TTbe  Second  /IDoofc  at  its  2enitb 

struck  him,  and  the  first  in  the  whole  book 
was  this,  from  Charles  Kingsley : 

Do  the  work  that  's  nearest, 
Though  it  's  dull  at  whiles, 

Helping  when  you  meet  them, 
Lame  dogs  over  stiles. 

I  smiled.  The  simple  and  wholesome 
view  of  life  and  duty  was  so  remote  from 
the  practice  of  my  friend  who  had  made 
this  quotation  with  approval.  The  next 
was  a  line  from  Balzac  :  "  Le  temps  le 
mieux  employe  est  celui  qu'on  perd." 
That  was  better  in  accord  with  his  prac- 
tice. Then  came  : 

Laugh,  and  the  world  laughs  with  you  ; 

Weep,  and  you  weep  alone  ; 
For  the  sad  old  Earth  must  borrow  her  mirth, 

She  has  sorrow  enough  of  her  own — 

and  so  on.  This  was  excellent  counsel, 
but  it  was  not  made  for  my  friend's  assimi- 
lation, who  was  in  the  first  place  quite  in- 
capable of  commanding  his  moods,  and  in 
the  second  quite  indifferent  to  what  the 
"  sad  old  Earth  "  did.  He  could  plough 


ttbe  Seconfc  flDoofc  at  its  Zenitb    151 

his  own  furrow,  happily  or  unhappily  as  it 
might  be  ;  but  the  approval  and  com- 
panionship of  his  fellow  men  did  not  enter 
at  all  into  the  profit-and-loss  account  of  his 
happiness. 

The  party  began  breaking  up.  Good- 
byes are  boring,  and  I  kept  in  the  back- 
ground. Miss  Whatman  came  across  the 
studio  to  me,  after  throwing  her  cloak 
about  her  shoulders.  "  Good-bye,"  she 
said.  And  I,  too,  said  "  Good-bye."  Then 
she  added,  "  I  wonder  why  it  is  you  don't 
like  me  ?  I  want  you  to  like  me.  You 
are  George  Hood's  friend." 

To  this  kind  of  remark  it  is  hard  to  find 
an  answer  all  in  an  instant ;  and  truthfully 
I  was  not  sure  whether  or  no  I  liked  her. 
It  was  true  at  least  that  I  had  an  antago- 
nistic sentiment  towards  her  on  account  of 
Gracia.  But  how  did  she  know  this  ?  I 
had  not  been  aware  that  she  had  regarded 
me  with  more  than  the  most  passing  at- 
tention all  the  evening  ;  and  yet  here  she 
surprised  me  by  revealing  to  me  my  own 
feeling  with  a  knowledge  of  it  greater  than 
my  own ! 


152   Ube  Second  flDoofc  at  Its  Zenith 

She  was  gone  before  I  had  said  any  defi- 
nite word  that  had  meaning,  and  a  minute 
later  Hood  and  I  were  alone.  He  looked 
at  me,  saying  nothing,  but  with  eyes  that 
asked  a  question.  I  nodded,  answering 
the  question.  "  Is  she  not  wonderful  ?  " 
he  asked,  as  if  to  test  that  he  had  been 
right  in  thinking  that  I  understood  the 
question  in  his  eyes ;  and  again  I  nodded. 

"  Women  doubtless,"  said  he,  "  speaking 
generally,  God  made  for  different  pur- 
poses, to  fulfil  different  needs  of  the  man 
for  whom  woman  is  the  helpmeet.  Some 
are  made  for  sympathy,  some  for  the  one 
use,  some  for  the  other  ;  and  some,  there 
is  not  the  slightest  doubt,  God  must  have 
made  when  He  was  in  a  very  evil  mood 
and  did  not  want  His  creation  to  be  too 
happy.  That  is  the  only  explanation  of  a 
good  many  of  them." 

"  Try  another  explanation,"  I  suggested, 
"  that  it  is  not  God  at  first  hand,  but  only 
His  servant,  man,  that  made  those  women 
such  as  they  are." 

"  That  savors  a  bit  of  the  pulpit,"  he 
replied,  with  a  just  rebuke ;  "  but  even 


Second  flDoofc  at  its  Zenitb    153 


taking  that  as  you  say  it,  man  was  God's 
servant  in  the  matter,  and  for  that  which 
a  man  does  through  his  agent  the  law  of 
man  holds  him  as  responsible  as  for  that 
which  he  does  himself.  I  do  not  know 
why  you  should  judge  your  God  by  a 
more  indulgent  standard." 

He  took  up  a  book  and  began  to  read, 
saying,  "  Do  you  know  the  Song  of  Khan 
Lada  ?  "  I  shook  my  head  this  time,  and 
he  read  : 

Only  in  August  my  heart  was  aflame. 

Catching  the  scent  of  your  wind-stirred  hair, 
Now,  though  you  spread  it  to  soften  my  sleep 

Through  the  night  I  should  hardly  care. 
Only  last  August  I  drank  that  water 

Because  it  had  chanced  to  cool  your  hands  ; 
When  love  is  over,  how  little  of  love 

Even  the  lover  understands  !  ' 

He  stopped  reading  and  did  not  speak 
for  a  little  while.  Then  he  said,  "  It  is 
curious,  but,  do  you  know,  I  do  not  think 
that  Gracia  ever  once  told  me  that  she 
loved  me  —  not  directly,  in  words." 

"  But  she  has  proved  it,"  I  said. 

1  Lawrence  Hope  :     The  Garden  of  Kama. 


iS4   TTbe  Secon£>  flDoofc  at  its  Zenttb 

"  Yes,"  he  agreed,  "  she  has."  He  had 
been  turning  over  the  leaves  of  the  book 
and  now  began  to  read  again  : 

Whether  I  love  you  ?     You  do  not  ask, 
Nor  waste  yourself  on  the  thankless  task. 
I  give  your  kisses  at  least  return, 
What  matter  whether  they  freeze  or  burn  ? 
I  feel  the  strength  of  your  fervent  arms, 
What  matter  whether  it  heals  or  harms  ? 

You  are  wise  :     you  take  what  the  gods  have  sent, 

You  ask  no  question,  but  rest  content, 

So  I  am  with  you  to  take  your  kiss, 

And  perhaps  I  value  you  more  for  this, 

For  this  is  Wisdom  :  to  love,  to  live, 

To  take  what  Fate  or  the  gods  may  give, 

To  ask  no  question,  to  make  no  prayer, 

To  kiss  the  lips  and  caress  the  hair, 

Speed  passion's  ebb  as  you  greet  its  flow, — 

To  have, — to  hold, — and, — in  time, — let  go  ! 

Of  course,  while  he  read,  I  had  to  do 
the  work  of  interpretation,  to  translate  the 
words  out  of  the  impersonal  sense  in  which 
they  were  meant  by  the  writer  into  the  per- 
sonal sense  of  the  relations  of  the  reader 
with  Gracia,  in  which  I  quite  understood 
that  he  intended  me  to  take  them. 


ft  be  Second  flDoofc  at  its  Zenttb    155 

At  the  end  of  the  reading,  and  after  a 
little  pause,  he  said,  "  No.  She  asks  no 
questions.  She  did  not  ask  you  any  about 
me,  about  my  life  ?  " 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  none." 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  She  would  not.  It  is 
not  her  way.  In  that  she  is  wonderful. 
Well,  I  will  ask  one  question  of  you  about 
her  :  do  you  think  there  is  any  one,  any 
of  her  own  people,  to  whom  she  gives  a 
thought  when  I  am  away  from  her  ?  " 

"  No,"  I  answered,  with  an  indignation 
that  I  did  not  trouble  to  conceal  from  him. 
"  I  am  certain  there  is  not." 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  he  said,  rather 
wearily — "  right  to  be  angry  with  me  for 
asking  such  a  question.  I  am  ashamed  of  it 
myself.  It  would  make  things  easier  per- 
haps if  she  did."  Then,  after  a  quick  pace 
or  two  up  and  down  the  room,  he  added, 
"  Do  you  know  I  believe  she  would  have 
a  stronger  hold  on  me  if  she  did  ?  " 

"  Quite  likely,  I  should  think,  I  said. 
"  Such  is  the  nature  of  man." 

Evidently  we  were  growing  sententious 
— and  sleepy.  I  got  up  to  go.  "  And  if 


156   Ube  Second  /IDOO&  at  its  Zenitb 

she  thinks  of  none  of  them,"  I  said,  "you 
may  be  sure  it  is  not  from  want  of  oppor- 
tunity, temptation,  asking — however  you 
like  to  put  it.  Tio  told  me  when  I  was 
down  in  the  forest,  that  Jim  Lee  is  always 
after  her,  to  get  her  to  marry  him.  He 
apparently  attaches  no  great  importance  to 
the  form  of  bond  you  contracted  with  her." 

"  I  am  afraid  the  morals  of  the  average 
gypsy  are  not  as  exemplary  as  some  people 
who  have  written  about  them  would  make 
believe,"  he  said.  "  Probably  Jim  Lee 
does  not  attach  a  great  deal  of  importance 
to  any  form  of  the  marriage  bond,  whether 
a  priest  or  a  blacksmith  tied  it. 

"  I  shall  be  away  from  town  for  a  day  or 
two  "  he  said  as  I  bade  him  good  night.  "  I 
had  a  letter  this  morning  from  the  old 
butler  saying  that  my  father  has  not  been 
so  well.  He  does  not  seem  to  think  it  any- 
thing serious,  but  I  shall  go  down  to- 
morrow to  see  how  he  is." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    HAND    OF    DEATH 


WITHIN  a  week  I  was  in  Scotland,  and 
on  the  morning  after  my  arrival  saw  in 
the  London  papers  notice  of  the  death 
of  George  Hood's  father.  "  From  heart 
failure,"  the  brief  account  said.  I  wrote 
at  once  to  my  friend  such  words  of  sym- 
pathy as  my  genuine  grief  for  him 
prompted.  Apparently  the  death  had 
been  sudden,  for  it  had  occurred  the  very 
day  after  the  dinner  party  mentioned  in  the 
last  chapter.  In  a  sense  it  had  also  been 
unexpected,  for  Hood  himself  had  ex- 
pressly said  that  though  he  was  going  to 
Suffolk  in  reply  to  a  letter  from  the  ser- 
vant telling  him  that  his  father  was  not  so 
well,  still  he  had  no  apprehension  of  the 
illness  being  immediately  critical.  At  the 
same  time  I  knew  also  that  Hood  was 
157 


158  TTbe  Ifoano  of  Beatb 

aware  that  such  a  catastrophe  was  prob- 
able at  any  moment,  and  therefore  could 
hardly  come  as  a  surprise  although,  when 
the  long  expected  did  happen,  it  could 
not  fail  to  give  something  of  a  shock. 

I  received  no  answer — I  had  expected 
none — to  my  letter  of  condolence,  and  it 
was  not  until  my  return  to  London,  many 
weeks  later,  that  I  again  heard  anything 
or  saw  anything  of  my  friend. 

He  spoke  very  feelingly  about  his 
father's  death,  saying  how  hard  it  seemed 
that  he  should  be  taken  now,  just  when 
father  and  son  had  learnt  to  understand 
and  appreciate  each  other.  He  told  me 
how  much  he  regretted  the  years  of  misun- 
derstanding— years,  as  he  felt,  lost  forever, 
in  which  he  might  have  received  and  have 
given  so  much  happiness,  but  for  their 
misunderstanding  —  years  in  which  he 
might  have  known  something  of  a  home 
life  more  conventional  than  either  the  life 
of  the  van  or  the  life  of  the  Kensington 
studio.  Then  he  began  to  tell  me  the 
manner  of  his  father's  death. 

Hood  had  a  look,  which  struck  me  im- 


Ube  1ban&  of  Deatb  159 

mediately  that  I  saw  him,  of  nervous 
strain,  as  if  he  had  passed  through  some 
hard  experience  since  our  last  meeting ; 
and  when  I  heard  of  the  last  scene  of  his 
father's  life  I  was  not  surprised  that  it  had 
left  traces.  It  appeared  that  on  arrival 
at  his  Suffolk  home  he  had  been  told  that 
his  father  was  much  as  when  the  message 
that  had  summoned  him  was  sent ;  he  had 
gone  up  to  the  room,  which  was  dignified 
with  the  name  of  study,  where  his  father 
commonly  sat :  there  he  had  found  his 
father  seated  before  a  table  covered  with 
papers,  with  a  waste-paper  basket  at  his 
elbow.  Already  the  basket  was  half  full, 
or  more,  with  the  papers  torn  up  and  de- 
stroyed, and  the  process  of  destruction 
was  in  further  course  when  it  was  arrested 
by  George  Hood's  entrance  into  the  room. 
It  was  arrested  at  once,  and  it  was  arrested 
forever,  for,  as  he  entered,  his  father 
raised  his  white  face,  for  an  instant  his 
lips  formed  themselves  to  the  expression 
of  a  smile,  signifying  a  pleased  recogni- 
tion of  his  son  whom  he  was  expecting; 
then,  whether  even  this  light  emotion  and 


160  Ube  TEmno  of  Deatb 

its  gentle  access  of  pulse-beat  were  too 
severe  a  strain  on  the  enfeebled  heart,  or 
whether  the  appearance  of  his  son  unan- 
nounced, although  expected,  occasioned  a 
shock  of  surprise,  slight  yet  too  heavy  for 
its  over-worn  recipient,  his  face  changed 
its  look  of  pleasure  to  one  of  frightful 
anguish ;  and  a  change,  as  rapid,  of  color, 
from  white  to  livid,  again  giving  place  to 
a  more  pallid  hue  than  ever,  passed,  even 
in  the  brief  interval  between  George 
Hood's  opening  of  the  door  and  reaching 
his  father's  side.  It  was  Hood's  firm  be- 
lief that  his  father  was  dead  before  he 
came  to  him.  For  all  human  uses,  at 
least,  his  state  was  equivalent  to  death, 
for  he  never  spoke,  moved,  or  showed  a 
sign  of  consciousness  again. 

"  There  fell  from  his  hand,"  said  George 
Hood,  "  even  as  I  came  to  him,  a  paper. 
The  coincidence  is  striking.  What,  do 
you  think,  that  paper  was  ?  It  was  the 
will  made  by  him  when  he  was  on  bad 
terms  with  me,  the  will  that  dispossessed 
me  of  all  my  natural  rights,  the  will  he 
had  made  under  the  false  impression 


Dano  of  2>eatb 


that  I  was  married  to  Gracia.  He  died 
almost  in  the  act  of  tearing  it."  George 
Hood  looked  at  me  curiously. 

"It  was  in  his  hand.  He  had  already 
torn  it,"  I  said,  allowing  just  so  much  of 
the  interrogative  tone  to  come  into  the 
words  as  would  suggest  the  expectation 
of  an  answer. 

He  did  not  give  me  any  answer.  He 
sat  looking  at  me  in  the  same  curious  way 
as  before. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

GEORGE  HOOD'S  SECOND  MARRIAGE 

EVENTS  move  fast  when  life  is  monoto- 
nous. Mine  was  monotonous  enough  to 
permit  surprise  at  the  pace  with  which 
changes  broke  the  current  of  George 
Hood's  life.  Sooner  than  I  should  have 
supposed  that  the  law's  proverbial  delays 
would  allow  it  I  saw  proof  of  his  father's 
will,  a  will  of  date  prior  to  that  of  George's 
gypsy  wedding.  It  argued  therefore,  the 
destruction  of  a  later  will — of  the  will 
made  while  the  testator  was  on  ill  terms 
with  the  son — of  the  will  which  the  son 
told  me  he  had  seen  in  the  hand  of  the 
testator  when  dying — of  the  will  concern- 
ing which  I  had  asked :  "He  had  already 
torn  it  ?  "  but  had  received  in  answer  only 
my  friend's  curious,  enigmatic  look.  The 
will,  as  stated  in  the  Illustrated  London 
News  to  have  been  proved,  left  virtually 
162 


6eorae  Iboofc's  Second  flDarriaae   163 

everything,  and  it  was  a  great  sum,  to  my 
friend.  That  was  the  first  of  the  changes 
in  his  life.  He  had  become  a  rich  man 
from  a  poor  one.  It  is  a  change  that  gen- 
erally means  a  good  deal.  It  was  a  change 
that  had,  as  I  knew,  a  peculiar  significance 
in  George  Hood's  life  for  the  moment,  for 
it  meant  that  he  was  now  placed  in  a 
financial  position  which  enabled  him  to 
marry  whom  he  would  without  incurring 
the  charge  of  fortune-hunting  which  kind 
critics  would  not  have  hesitated  to  bring 
if  he  had  proposed  to  Miss  Whatman  with 
the  very  moderate  prospects  that  he  en- 
joyed while  under  his  father's  displeasure. 
The  advent  of  the  second  of  the  changes 
in  the  life  of  my  friend  was  announced  to 
me  in  the  form  of  a  request  that  I  should 
be  his  best  man  at  his  marriage  with  Miss 
Olga  Whatman.  Following  my  accept- 
ance of  this  office  I  was  formally  intro- 
duced by  Hood  to  his  fiancte  as  his  closest 
friend,  and  found  myself  at  once  regarded 
with  the  interest  that  was  natural.  It  was 
an  interest  with  which  I  could  not  flatter 
myself  that  the  lady  had  ever  favored  me 


164    George  Iboofc's  Second 

before,  and  I  understood  its  significance 
immediately.  It  meant,  "  To  what  degree 
is  he  malleable  ?  How  much  information 
shall  I  extract  from  him  ?  " 

I  do  not  wish  to  draw  an  unamiable 
portrait.  It  was  so  natural  as  to  be  inevi- 
table that  this  should  be  the  lady's  point  of 
view.  In  return  for  the  little,  and  the 
generalities,  that  I  gave  her  she  told  me 
much  of  her  views  for  George  Hood  in 
the  future.  She  wished  him  to  go  into 
Parliament,  to  gain  office  and  a  seat  in  the 
Cabinet.  Her  ambition  was  of  the  better 
kind — it  was  ambition  frankly,  there  was 
no  pretence  of  duty  or  serving  his  country. 
She  was  under  no  delusion  of  the  kind 
that  makes  some  women  think  that  one 
man,  the  one  man  in  whom  they  take  in- 
terest, is  the  one  man  that  the  country 
wants.  She  was  too  clear-sighted  into  her 
own  motives,  and  gifted  with  too  just  a 
sense  of  proportion,  to  lose  herself  thus. 
But  the  ambition  was  of  the  better  kind. 
It  had  no  arritre  penste  of  social  advan- 
tage. She  had  quite  sufficiently  "  arrived  " 
already  to  be  independent  of  that.  A 


George  Iboo&'s  Second  /IDarriage    165 

Cabinet  Minister's  wife  is  not  necessarily 
any  figure  in  society  ;  but  Miss  Whatman, 
before  being  anybody's  wife,  distinctly 
was.  So  the  ambition  was  not  of  the 
vulgar  kind.  But  she  recognized  and 
appreciated  her  husband's  gifts  of  intel- 
lect, which  were  unusual,  and  she  wished 
to  see  him  go  down  with  them  into  the 
common  arena  of  politics  and  do  battle 
for  her — after  all  it  is  very  like  the  mediae- 
val lists,  with  wits  instead  of  lances — con- 
foundinghis  foes  and  emerging  triumphant. 

"  George  has  the  talent,  has  he  not," 
she  said,  after  sketching  the  career  she 
desired  for  him. 

"  Certainly  he  has  the  intellect,"  I  said, 
"  to  become  anything." 

"What's  the  distinction  you  mean  to 
draw?" 

"  I  mean  that  he  has  the  mental  gifts  to 
rise  to  any  position  you  like  ;  my  doubt  is 
whether  he  has  the  wish  and  the  will  to 
make  him  exert  his  gifts." 

She  nodded  at  that,  with  a  glad  confi- 
dence in  her  eyes.  I  knew  her  thought 
to  be,  "  I  will  be  the  will  and  the  wish  for 


166    <3eorge  tboofc's  Second  /Carriage 

him  "  ;  but  though  she  was  really  in  love, 
she  was  not  so  fatuous  as  to  say  it. 

"  Would  n't  it  be  splendid,"  she  ex- 
claimed, "  to  be  Prime  Minister  of  an  an- 
cient country  like  England,  to  feel  that 
you  were  making  history  ?  It  would  be 
glorious." 

"  I  don't  think  the  glory  of  it  would 
appeal  to  George,"  I  said. 

Her  wise  reticence  was  not  proof  against 
this.  "  I  will  make  him,"  she  said,  with  a 
note  of  assured  triumph.  "  Why  should  a 
man  let  his  talents  rust  in  the  earth  ?  " 

Already,  whether  by  virtue  of  Miss 
Olga's  influence,  or  by  the  workings  of 
other  causes,  I  found  a  change  in  my  friend. 
He  seemed  to  have  lost  something — the 
quality  that  was  one  of  his  greatest  attrac- 
tions for  me — his  power  of  indolence,  his 
gift  of  repose.  In  his  common-place  book 
I  had  seen  quoted,  of  course  with  tacit  ap- 
proval, the  passage  of  Balzac,  "  Le  temps 
le  mieux  employe  est  celui  qu'on  perd  " ; 
and  he  had  lived  as  if  that  maxim  had  hold 
of  his  heart.  As  a  boy,  he  had  told  me, 
he  had  astonished  a  master  who  had  asked 


1boot>'s  Second  flDarriage    167 


him  what  he  was  going  to  do  during  a 
spare  hour  between  lessons.  "  I  'm  going 
to  do  nothing,"  he  had  said.  Pressed  as 
to  what  "  nothing,"  meant,  it  was  found 
that  it  really  did  mean  nothing  —  no  game, 
no  book,  no  talk,  no  walk,  not  even  sleep, 
simply  the  wakeful  enjoyment  of  doing 
nothing.  It  was  Oriental.  He  had  de- 
veloped this  disposition,  which  is  not  natu- 
ral in  a  boy,  as  he  grew  up,  until  the  habit 
of  doing  nothing  and  the  faculty  of  enjoy- 
ing it  —  a  very  valuable  and  rare  one  —  had 
become  quite  characteristic  of  him.  But 
since  his  engagement,  as  I  fancied,  he  had 
lost  a  good  deal  of  it.  It  seemed  almost 
as  if  he  had  closed  down  the  page,  for  the 
purpose  of  using  the  maxim  as  a  working 
one  in  life,  that  bore  these  words  of  Balzac, 
and  had  taken  to  heart  instead  those  words 
of  Kingsley's  which  I  had  found  quite  in 
friendly  neighborhood  with  those  of 
Balzac  in  his  book  : 

Do  the  work  that  's  nearest, 
Though  it  's  dull  at  whiles, 

Helping,  when  you  meet  them, 
Lame  dogs  over  stiles. 


168    George  iboo&'s  Secon£> 

I  do  not  know  that  lame  dogs  to  be 
helped  came  in  his  way  much,  although 
he  affected  charitable  work  in  general ; 
but  he  seemed  constantly  to  have  near  at 
hand  a  work  to  be  done,  and  to  go  from 
one  work  to  another  in  feverish  haste,  as 
if  he  had  acquired  a  new  and  strange 
passion  for  creating  duties  for  himself. 
The  change  could  not  fail  to  set  a  mark 
on  his  face,  which  had  begun  to  wear  a 
look  of  nervous  strain  that  was  new  to  it. 

The  wedding  was  as  quiet  as  possible, 
owing  to  the  recent  death  of  Hood's  father. 
Nevertheless,  the  papers  found  it  needful 
to  write  a  good  deal  that  was  superfluous 
about  the  marriage  of  one  who  had  been 
so  well  known  in  London  society  (or  in 
a  certain  section  of  it)  as  Miss  Whatman. 

Four  days  after  the  wedding,  when  I 
came  from  the  club  to  my  rooms  in  St. 
James's  Place  about  midnight,  I  was  fol- 
lowed. A  man  overtook  me  as  I  reached 
my  lodgings.  He  gave  no  word  of  greet- 
ing, but  thrust  into  my  hand  a  torn  and 
dirty  fragment  of  newspaper,  saying  in  a 
foreign  voice  that  was  familiar  to  me,  "  Is 


<3eor0e  Ifoooo's  Second  /IDarriaoe    169 

that  true  ?  "  There  was  a  ring  of  some- 
thing very  like  menace  in  the  tone,  and 
for  a  moment  I  was  glad  that  my  back  was 
to  the  wall,  and  the  main  street  close  at 
hand.  Then  I  recognized  him. 

"  Tio  ! "  I  said  surprised,  "  is  it  you  ?  " 

But  by  way  of  all  answer  he  repeated 
his  former  question,  with  a  fierce  nod 
towards  the  bit  of  newspaper  that  I  held 
in  my  hand  : 

"  Is  that  true  ?  " 

I  read  the  heading  of  the  paragraph  by 
the  fanlight  above  the  door  and  recognized 
it  as  one  of  the  accounts  of  Hood's 
wedding  that  had  gone  the  round  of  the 
papers. 

"  Yes,"  I  said.  "  Yes,  it  is  true."  There 
was  nothing  else  to  be  said,  however  greatly 
I  might  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  it. 
It  was  my  intention  to  question  the  old 
man  about  Gracia,  to  discover  in  what  light 
he  and  she  viewed  this  marriage,  on  formal 
lines,  of  my  friend  ;  but  he  gave  me  no 
chance.  He  waited  only  for  my  answer, 
"Yes,  it  is  true,"  and  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  RETURN  FROM  THE  HONEYMOON 

I  WAS  disturbed,  more  than  a  little,  by 
the  menace  that  seemed  implied  by  the 
question  asked  by  Tio  as  he  thrust  the 
dirty  scrap  of  newspaper  into  my  hand. 
Had  I  known  how  to  do  so,  I  should  have 
communicated  the  hint  of  danger  to  my 
friend,  but  I  did  not  know  his  address. 
His  lawyers  offered  to  forward  a  letter  for 
me,  but  I  did  not  care  to  send  a  message 
of  this  kind  by  any  devious  and  doubtful 
channel.  I  determined  to  wait  till  he  re- 
turned from  the  Continent.  So  long  as  he 
was  abroad  I  did  not  suppose  that  he  was 
in  immediate  risk.  I  wrote  to  him  through 
his  solicitors,  saying  only  that  I  should  be 
pleased  to  hear  from  him  directly  he  came 
home  ;  and  in  response  to  that  letter  had  a 
wire  from  him  at  Milan  saying  that  he  was 
170 


Ube  IReturn  from  tbe  Ibonegmoon    171 

on  his  way  back  with  his  wife  and  asking 
me  to  dine  with  them  in  London  on  that 
day  week. 

Just  before  his  marriage  Hood  had 
bought  one  of  the  old-fashioned  houses  in 
Berkeley  Square,  and  it  was  here  that  I 
went  to  dine  with  him  and  his  bride. 

"  You  are  our  first  guest — the  first  to 
break  the  bread  of  hospitality  in  our 
house,"  Mrs.  Hood  said.  She  entertained 
me,  and  George  scarcely  less,  during  din- 
ner with  a  charmingly  vivacious  and 
humorous  account  of  their  winter  honey- 
moon in  Sicily.  With  Taormina  for  their 
headquarters  they  had  made  expeditions, 
both  by  land  and  in  a  yacht,  and  the  days 
appeared  to  have  gone  in  ideal  idling 
fashion. 

Hood  and  his  wife  seemed  as  mutually 
happy  as  two  people  can  be.  The  look  of 
nerve-strain  on  his  face  that  I  had  noticed 
was  gone,  with  that  sense  of  restlessness 
which  had  accompanied  it.  He  was  again 
as  I  had  known  him,  the  lazy,  brilliant 
idler,  complected  of  the  idealist  and 
humorist,  looking  at  life  through  dreamy 


172   tlbe  Uteturn  from  tbe  Tbonepmoon 

half-closed  lids  and  strangely  and  beauti- 
fully tinted  glasses.  I  dreaded  the  com- 
munication that  I  had  to  make  to  him  after 
dinner,  about  the  menace  that  I  had 
fancied  in  Tio's  tone.  After  all  it  might 
be  the  purest  fancy.  In  the  interval  of 
nearly  a  fortnight  that  had  elapsed  since 
the  night  when  he  had  accosted  me  in  St. 
James's  Place,  the  impression  that  the 
gypsy's  manner  had  made  upon  me  had 
grown  less  vivid.  It  might  have  meant 
nothing  after  all.  I  felt  a  great  reluctance 
to  trouble  my  friend's  newly  regained 
peace  by  reference  to  a  subject  that  was, 
to  say  the  least,  out  of  harmony  with  the 
present  circumstances.  Nevertheless,  I 
had  to  explain  in  some  way  the  meaning  of 
the  letter  I  had  written  him  requesting  a 
meeting.  The  true  way  was  the  most 
simple,  and  in  a  word  or  two  I  told  him 
what  had  occurred  and  the  impression  it 
had  made  on  me. 

By  way  of  answer  he  took  my  hand  in 
his  own.drew  it  behind  his  back  and  just  be- 
low the  shoulder  blade,  and  then  pressing 
it  on  his  body,  said,  "Do  you  feel  that  ?  " 


TReturn  from  tbe  Ibone^moon    1  73 


But  for  the  obsession  with  which  my 
own  mind  was  full,  but  for  the  picture  I 
had  often  conjured  of  Tio  with  his  Spanish 
knife,  stealing  up  behind  my  friend  to 
plunge  the  blade  into  his  heart,  I  might 
not  have  known  the  significance  of  the 
hard  yet  yielding  substance  on  which  my 
fingers  pressed  ;  but  with  the  light  of  that 
fancied  picture  to  interpret  for  me  I  had 
no  difficulty. 

"Mail?"  I  said. 

He  nodded.  "Just  a  very  small  plate 
—  like  a  porous  plaster,"  he  said,  laugh- 
ing. 

"  Yes,"  I  said  gravely.  "  It  is  too  small. 
If  there  is  necessity  for  wearing  it  at  all  it 
ought  to  be  larger.  And  it  is  too  low 
down." 

"  It  is  not,"  he  said  with  a  quiet  con- 
fidence. "  It  would  be  if  old  Tio  was  a 
bungler,  or  if  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
different  school  of  the  cuchillo.  The  Span- 
ish gypsy  does  not  strike  downwards  nor 
upwards.  He  prods,  as  if  with  a  rapier. 
I  have  heard  it  all  argued  scientifically. 
It  is  the  safest  and  surest  way." 


174   ftbe  IReturn  from  tbe  Ibonesmoon 

I  saw  that  he  had  taken  his  measures 
with  a  forethought  that  left  no  room  for 
my  suggestions. 

"  Your  wife  knows  ?  "  I  asked. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Luck  has  been 
with  me  so  far.  She  has  never  happened 
to  feel  it.  When  she  does  I  must  give 
some  explanation,  I  suppose.  She  will 
think  me  a  coward,  or  absurdly  apprehen- 
sive of  attack.  It  does  not  matter." 

"  Had  you  any  reason,  before  I  spoke  to 
you,  for  being  afraid  of  Tio  ?  " 

"  Only  such  reason  as  my  knowledge  of 
his  character  and  the  character  of  the  peo- 
ple he  belongs  to  gives." 

"  Is  Tio  the  one  you  were  afraid  of?" 

"  I  think  so — yes.     Whom  else  ?  " 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  "  Gracia  ?  " 
I  said,  with  a  question  in  the  tone. 

"  I  think  not,"  he  said  doubtfully.  "  I 
could  not  say." 

Then  he  began  to  ask  me  about  Gracia 
and  about  the  boy,  whether  I  had  seen  them 
lately,  and  so  on.  He  told  me  in  what 
county  they  were — far  away  in  the  west,  in 
Devon — that  at  least  was  the  direction  in 


TTbe  TReturn  from  tbe  Ibonegmoon   175 

which  they  had  been  said  to  be  going, 
when  they  came  out  of  their  stationary 
winter  quarters  near  Bournemouth,  by 
Hood's  lawyer,  who  supplied  Gracia  with 
money.  He  asked  me  if  I  would  go  down 
and  see  them  and  report  to  him  how  they 
were  all  faring  ;  and  this  I  promised  to  do 
within  a  week  or  so. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE    SOOTHING    OF    THE    SEA 

IT  was  at  Dulverton  that  I  came  first  on 
the  track  of  the  party  I  was  looking  for. 
Now  and  again  in  the  quest  I  had  paused 
to  ask  myself  my  motives.  It  was  not 
affection  for  George  Hood  that  drove  me 
on  these  wanderings  in  search  of  these 
wanderers.  I  had  doubts  of  the  nature 
of  my  sentiment  for  him.  Friendship  it 
included,  without  doubt,  but  affection  I 
could  hardly  claim  for  it.  I  doubted  much 
if  I  had  a  real  liking  for  the  man  to  whom 
I  refer  so  often  in  these  pages  as  my 
friend.  There  was  much  in  him  that  was 
attractive  ;  there  was  something  also  that 
repelled.  But  above  all,  he  was  interest- 
ing. His  life  and  the  problems  that  it  re- 
vealed to  me  were  unusually  interesting. 
That  was  the  real  key  that  I  seemed  to 
176 


Ube  Sootbina  of  tbc  Sea         177 

find  for  the  motives  that  sent  me  touring 
over  combe  and  moorland  roads  on  a 
bicycle  that  jolted  sorely  in  the  ruts  and 
water-worn  places.  Shrewdly  I  asked  my- 
self if  I  had  dealt  fairly  in  this  self-search- 
ing. I  suspected  myself  sorely ;  again 
and  again  asking  myself  if  it  were  really 
on  account  of  this,  my  doubtful  friend, 
that  I  went  these  odysseys,  and  in  no 
measure  on  account  of  that  beautiful 
woman,  beyond  all  others  that  I  had  ever 
seen  for  beauty,  who  was  reputed  to  be 
his  wife.  But,  though  I  suspected,  I  could 
not  convict  myself.  With  the  best  will  in 
the  world  to  find  myself  guilty  I  had  per- 
force to  pass  a  verdict  of  heart  freedom. 
The  woman  of  the  caravan,  Gracia,  was  a 
charm  to  the  eyes,  but  I  found  that  she 
had  said  nothing  to  my  heart. 

It  was  at  Dulverton  that  I  first  heard  of 
the  party,  from  one  of  the  moor  gypsies, 
and  was  told  that  they  had  been  there — 
Tio,  Gracia,  and  the  boy — but  had  gone 
westward  again  across  Exmoor  to  the 
Barnstaple  country.  So  that  way,  too, 
towards  the  setting  sun,  I  had  to  turn  my 


178         ZEbe  Sootbing  of  tbe  Sea 

wheels,  through  the  early  spring  weather 
which  comes  softly  and  kindly  in  the  genial 
combes,  but  leaves  the  higher  ground  bare 
and  swept  by  east  winds  for  weeks  longer. 
At  length  I  came  down  off  the  moorland, 
and  as  I  left  it  heard  fresh  tidings  of  those 
I  sought.  They  were  gone  westward  still 
to  the  Braunton  Burrows,  on  the  edge  of 
Bideford  Bay  and  the  estuary  into  which 
run  together  the  rivers  Taw  and  Torridge. 
So  then  I  pedalled  on  to  the  old  town  of 
Barnstaple,  across  its  bridge  that  spans 
the  river  Taw,  and  in  a  mile  or  two  came 
to  a  by-road  which  led  out  to  a  sandy 
waste  where  the  track  that  would  bear  my 
cycle  was  lost  in  soft  powdery  sand,  and  I 
had  to  take  to  my  feet,  pushing  the  re- 
luctant bicycle.  There  was  a  track  to  fol- 
low, and  the  track  had  been  cut  within  a 
few  days — certainly  since  the  last  high 
gale,  that  would  have  obliterated  all  traces 
on  the  sand — by  the  wheels  of  a  heavy 
wagon.  Moreover,  beside  the  track, 
where  a  spring  had  moistened  the  sand 
and  made  it  plastic,  I  found,  twice,  the 
impress  of  human  feet,  bare  of  shoes  or 


Sootbina  ot  tbe  Sea         179 


stockings,  some  small,  some  larger  ;  and 
these  silent  witnesses  told  me  that  the 
caravan  had  gone  forward,  with  Gracia 
and  her  boy  sometimes  walking  barefoot 
by  the  side,  and  I  guessed  that  this  track 
would  soon  bring  my  search  to  an  end,  for 
it  certainly  led  out  to  the  beach,  and  it 
was  unlikely  that  there  would  be  any  other 
road  connecting  with  it  that  would  lead 
to  the  beach  by  another  way.  The  track 
went  gleaming  and  blinding  white  over 
the  white  sand  that  threw  back  the  rays 
of  the  mid-day  spring  sun  like  a  solid  heat. 
It  was  breathless  in  the  shelter  of  the  sand- 
dunes  that  only  the  thin  yellow  marram 
clothed.  Here  and  there  turf  had  won 
over  the  sand  and  there  was  a  close,  many- 
colored  carpet  of  thyme  and  other  tiny 
and  low-growing  flowers  with  the  bees 
going  over  them  in  myriads,  with  a  cease- 
less hum,  and  small  blue  butterflies  in- 
numerable. Where  water  had  lain,  and 
the  tall  rushes  grew,  their  stems  were 
dotted  with  the  cocoons  of  the  gay  burnet 
moth.  Here  and  there  were  patches  of 
euphorbia. 


i8o        Ube  SootbinQ  ot  tbe  Sea 

The  sound  of  the  sea  grew  louder  and  a 
fresher  and  more  salt  breath  came  to  re- 
lieve the  heat,  and  presently,  on  the  land- 
ward side  of  a  high  dune  facing  the  sea,  I 
saw  the  travelling  homes  I  was  in  search 
of.  The  watchful  cockatoo  gave  notice  of 
my  coming  first,  with  its  screeching  cry 
of  "  Ge-orge,  Ge-orge,"  never  failing,  or  so 
it  seemed,  to  associate  me  with  its  master, 
in  whose  company  it  had  first  seen  me.  I 
cursed  the  bird  from  my  heart  at  the 
thought  that  its  call  would  suggest  to 
Gracia,  as  it  had  done  once  before,  that 
he  whom  she  must  regard  as  her  husband 
by  all  law,  human  and  divine,  as  known  to 
her,  was  near  at  hand,  only  that  she  might 
be  disappointed  sadly.  About  the  wagons, 
however,  were  only  Tio  and  the  youth, 
who  dragged  themselves  out  from  the 
shade  underneath  the  vans  in  which  they 
had  been  lying,  passing  their  time  in  that 
blissful  occupation  of  doing  nothing  at 
which  they  were  so  proficient.  Tio  ap- 
proached me  with  eyes  blinking  at  the 
glare  of  the  sun.  I  was  a  little  doubtful 
about  his  reception  of  me,  but  it  was  not 


tTbe  Sootbtno  of  tbe  Sea         181 

hostile,  though  its  coolness  was  almost  re- 
freshing in  the  heat  of  the  day.  It  was 
no  less  obvious  than  it  was  natural  that 
George  Hood's  friends  were  not  reckoned 
by  Tio  of  the  value  at  which  he  once  held 
them. 

I  asked  after  Gracia  and  the  boy.  Tio 
said  they  were  down  by  the  shore.  "Bath- 
ing?" I  asked.  "Paddling?" 

Tio  shrugged  his  shoulders,  as  if  to  in- 
dicate that  he  could  not  say  what  they 
might  be  doing.  Then  he  added,  "  She 
sits  all  her  time  now  looking  out  to  sea." 

I  did  not  want  to  hear  more,  and  there 
was  a  choke  in  my  voice  that  did  not  make 
talking  easy,  so  full  of  pathetic  meaning 
seemed  Tio's  simple  words  describing 
Gracia's  favorite  occupation.  I  went  by 
the  track  he  indicated  to  me,  leading 
among  the  sand-hills  to  the  shore,  and  there 
I  found  her,  as  he  had  led  me  to  expect, 
looking  out  to  sea.  She  sat  in  a  cave  of 
the  sand-dunes,  used,  likely  enough,  in  the 
winter  by  a  'longshore  gunner,  as  he  lay 
out  at  the  dusk  of  dawn  or  twilight  for 
the  flighting  duck.  She  sat  with  her  knees 


i8z         TTbe  Sootbina  of  tbe  Sea 

drawn  up  and  her  elbows  upon  them,  and 
her  chin  buried  in  her  hands,  gazing  sea- 
ward. The  sand  of  the  foreshore  went  shim- 
mering away  down  in  such  a  golden  haze 
of  sunlit  splendor  that  one  could  scarcely 
make  out,  for  the  dancing  mirage,  where 
the  sea  met  the  land  ;  but  farther  out  there 
was  a  line  of  brightest  snowy  white,  where 
the  breakers  raced  eternally  on  the  estuary 
bar.  The  white  line  broke  sharply  the 
azure  surface  of  the  sea  that  stretched 
north  and  west  between  the  headlands  of 
Morte  and  Hartland,  with  no  interruption 
save  the  low  outline  of  Lundy  Island  in 
the  distance  between.  There  was  not  a 
soul  within  view ;  nevertheless,  Gracia  sat 
there  in  the  hollow  of  the  sand,  looking 
over  the  sea ;  but  I  could  guess  that  her 
eyes  of  speculation  were  not  filled  by  the 
scene  before  them,  but  had  retrospections 
and  regrets  for  their  occupation.  The 
soft  sound  of  my  footsteps  on  the  shelly 
beach  was  lost  in  the  song  of  the  light 
breeze  combing  the  marram  grass  that 
fringed  the  cave  of  sand  in  which  she  sat, 
so  that  she  did  not  hear  nor  notice  me  till 


ZTbe  Sootbing  of  tbe  Sea         183 

I  was  close  upon  her.  Then  she  raised 
her  face  from  her  hands  and  looked  at  me. 
I  was  there  as  the  emissary  of  him 
whom  I  called  my  friend,  George  Hood ; 
yet,  as  the  woman  turned  her  face  on  me, 
I  found  a  voice  at  my  heart  cursing  him 
for  the  pain  he  had  caused,  for  the  beauty 
he  had  marred.  By  the  light  of  the  suffer- 
ing written  on  that  face,  which  before  had 
been  of  almost  too  perfect  beauty  to  be 
disturbed  by  any  definite  expression,  the 
wisdom  of  those  sophistries  by  which 
Hood  had  led  even  me,  a  person  without 
prejudice  in  this  regard,  to  admit  that  his 
path  of  duty  might  consist  with  wedding 
the  American  who  seemed  made  to  draw 
the  brightest  and  the  best  from  him,  to  ele- 
vate his  intellectual  nature  to  its  highest 
possible  degree — these  sophistries  seemed 
stricken  to  dumb  and  wicked  foolishness 
by  the  pain  I  read  on  the  face  of  the 
woman  whom  Hood  used  to  call  his  wife. 
And  as  I  cursed  my  so-called  friend  in  my 
heart,  I  wished  him  the  worst  that  I  could 
conceive  in  wishing  him  one  look  at  that 
face  as  I  saw  it  then. 


i84         TTbe  Sootbfng  of  tbe  Sea 

It  was  beautiful  still,  maybe  it  was  more 
beautiful  than  it  had  ever  been  before, 
though  I  do  not  think  that  possible.  The 
oval  of  the  outline  was  less  full  and  more 
delicate,  but  the  mouth,  in  winning  an  ex- 
pression of  sadness,  had  lost  the  curves 
that  had  made  its  perfection.  Above  all, 
the  change  was  in  the  eyes,  that  had  a 
look  of  longing  that  one  does  not  see  in 
the  eyes  of  a  happy  man  or  woman.  They 
were  as  the  eyes  of  a  dog  that  had  to 
make  all  its  prayer  with  them,  since  the 
gift  of  speech  has  not  been  granted.  I 
could  not  see  the  boy  for  the  moment. 
Probably  he  was  at  play  among  the  sand- 
hills. 

When  she  saw  me  she  greeted  me  as  if 
we  had  met  but  the  day  before.  It  is  a 
manner  characteristic  of  these  folk,  to 
whom  the  unexpected  is  their  constant 
portion  because  they  have  formed  no 
plans  and  no  anticipations  of  the  future 
event.  She  put  out  a  hand  to  me  as  I 
climbed  up  the  slipping  wall  of  sand, 
where  for  two  steps  forward  I  made  one 
back,  and  courteously  moved  to  give  me 


ZTbe  Sootbina  of  tbe  Sea         185 

space  to  sit  beside  her.  Then,  when  I 
was  seated,  I  found  myself  tongue-tied. 
There  was  nothing  to  say  before  such 
silent  sorrow  as  this  woman  suffered,  and 
suffered  without  complaint — with  acqui- 
escence, as  in  the  rain  or  the  sunshine  or 
the  other  gifts  that  are  sent  and  are  taken 
without  question.  I  talked  to  her  of  all 
kinds  of  indifferent  things — of  the  view,  to 
which  she  was  blind.  She  confessed  to 
me  that  she  had  come  hither  with  a  desire 
to  gaze  on  the  sea.  There  is  in  the  aspect 
of  the  sea  something  that  always  has  solace 
for  sentient  things  in  pain.  But  she  did 
not  understand  clearly  that  it  gave  her 
solace.  Her  desire  to  look  upon  the  sea 
was  instinctive  and  quite  irrational,  and 
she  took  in  no  details  of  its  beauty.  When 
I  said  that  the  sea  was  blue  she  assented, 
and  when  I  drew  her  attention  to  the 
shimmering  mirage  over  the  sand  she 
nodded  amiably,  but  the  scene  had  no 
hold  of  her  aesthetic  sense. 

I  asked  after  the  boy  ;  and  the  question 
was  answered  rather  humorously  by  the 
appearance,  at  the  moment,  of  the  urchin 


1 86         ftbe  Sootbino  of  tbe  Sea 

himself  round  a  corner  of  a  sand-hill  a 
hundred  yards  or  more  away,  in  hot  pur- 
suit of  a  burrow-duck  or  sheldrake  that 
had  come  from  its  home  down  a  rabbit- 
hole  in  the  sand-hill  and  proposed  to  walk 
sedately  over  the  sand  of  the  shore  into 
the  sea.  But  the  proposed  sedateness 
was  a  little  disturbed  by  the  boy's  detec- 
tion and  pursuit  of  it.  Nevertheless  it 
still  did  not  deign  to  take  to  its  wings  to 
escape  from  such  a  pigmy,  but  accelerated 
the  pace  of  its  ungainly  waddle,  so  that 
the  actions  of  the  two,  the  boy  and  the 
bird,  pursuer  and  pursued,  had  a  ridicu- 
lous likeness  to  each  other,  as  the  chase 
went  on,  not  rapidly,  over  the  sand  and 
into  the  shimmer  where  sea  joined  shore. 
A  light  of  gladness  came  into  the  mother's 
eyes  as  she  watched  the  comedy  with  a 
wide  smile  on  her  lovely  face.  It  was  not 
necessary  to  ask  how  the  boy  fared.  His 
vigorous  efforts,  on  his  tiny  legs,  after  the 
black  and  white  bird  spoke  for  themselves. 
Every  twenty  yards  or  so  he  fell  prone  on 
the  sand,  but  quickly  scrambled  up  again 
and  resumed  the  hunt.  At  length  the 


Ube  Sootbfng  of  tbe  Sea         187 

bird  gained  the  rippling  wave,  and  imme- 
diately its  waddling  gait  was  changed 
for  a  most  graceful  carriage  as  it  swam 
out  swiftly  over  the  dancing  waves.  For 
a  while  the  boy  watched  it,  then  came 
running  back  over  the  shore  again,  stop- 
ping once  in  a  while  to  pick  a  shell  or 
other  jetsam  that  attracted  him.  We 
watched  him  silently  as  he  came  ;  all  this 
while  Gracia  had  asked  no  question  about 
George  Hood.  The  very  fact  that  she 
had  not  done  so  showed  me  that  she 
knew  all  that  had  happened.  It  was  not 
likely  that  Tio  would  have  had  the  discre- 
tion, even  if  he  had  had  the  power,  to  keep 
from  her  the  news  conveyed  by  the  scrap 
of  paper  that  he  had  submitted  to  me  in 
London.  As  I  thought  of  his  appearance 
under  the  gaslights  it  seemed  almost  in- 
credible that  this  sunlit,  sea-bright,  sandy 
place  could  be  part  of  the  same  world  as 
that ;  yet  not  only  was  it  part  of  the  same 
world,  but  the  two  scenes  so  unlike  were 
closely  linked  by  some  human  destinies. 

When  the  boy  came  up  we  all  sat  and 
chatted  awhile  about  the  incidents   that 


1 88         Ube  Sootbfna  of  tbe  Sea 

had  befallen  on  their  journey  across  the 
moor,  and  the  shells  and  treasures  that 
the  boy  had  found  on  the  beach.  Gracia 
said  that  she  was  trying  to  teach  him  his 
letters,  but  that  he  preferred  to  run  wild 
rather  than  to  learn.  As  earnestly  as  I 
could,  without  impertinence,  I  urged  her 
to  give  the  boy  education,  and  at  that  she 
did  at  last  give  some  outward  sign  of  her 
emotion,  throwing  her  arms  abroad  with  a 
despairing  action  and  exclaiming,  "  What 
is  the  good  ?  What  is  the  good  ?  His 
father  has  forgotten  us." 

I  tried  then — it  was  not  a  very  excellent 
try,  for  my  sense  of  right  was  outraged — 
to  urge  that  this  was  not  so ;  I  said  that 
he  spoke  often,  anxiously  and  affection- 
ately, about  them  both,  which  was  true, 
and  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  did 
not  fail  to  send  the  regular  supplies  of 
money  as  a  proof  that  he  had  not,  as  she 
supposed,  forgotten  them. 

"Oh  yes — as  for  that — the  money!" 
she  said  scornfully  ;  and  indeed,  when  one 
knew  her  manner  of  life,  one  knew  that 
here,  for  once,  the  scorn  of  money  was  not 


Sootbing  of  tbe  Sea         189 

an  affectation  ;  "  but  he  does  not  care  any 
longer,  he  never  comes  to  see  me,  he  never 
wants  to  see  me." 

She  got  up  suddenly  as  she  said  this, 
gathered  into  her  own  hand  the  hand  of 
the  child  who  had  been  looking  at  her  with 
surprised  round  eyes  all  the  while  that  she 
was  speaking,  and  so  went  down  over  the 
sand-hill,  leaving  me  seated.  I  understood 
that  she  did  not  desire  that  I  should  follow 
her,  and  my  thoughts,  as  I  sat  and  gazed 
at  the  fair  sea-scape,  were  hot  against  my 
friend  who  had  done  so  great  a  wrong. 

After  a  while  I  went  back  to  the  wagons, 
but  Gracia  and  the  boy  were  not  there.  I 
no  longer  met  Tio  as  a  friend — indeed  I 
was  not  too  sure  whether  he  might  not 
have  tried,  if  the  dusk  had  fallen,  to  make 
me  proxy  for  George  Hood  and  scapegoat 
for  his  sins,  and  find  a  sheath  for  his 
Spanish  knife  beneath  my  ribs.  But  he 
and  the  youth  contented  themselves  with 
glances  of  cold  animosity  as  I  took  my  hot 
way  back  over  the  white  sands. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

WIFE    AND    HUSBAND 

THE  Hoods,  as  I  have  said,  had  bought 
one  of  the  fine  old  houses  in  Berkeley 
Square,  and  I  found  Mrs.  Hood  very  kindly 
disposed  towards  me,  regarding  me,  as  she 
observed  laughingly,  in  the  light  of  her 
husband's  dme  damnte.  "  I  suppose,"  she 
said,  "  that  as  you  have  served  him  as  best 
man,  so  one  day  you  will  be  called  on  to 
play  the  part  of  advocatus  diaboli  at  the 
Great  Judgment." 

"Not  he,"  George  Hood  had  replied 
readily.  "He  knows  a  good  deal  about 
me,  but  there  are  depths  of  my  villainy 
that  not  even  he  has  ever  plumbed." 

How  much  of  his  "  villainy  "  had  been 

revealed  to  his  wife  I  did  not  know,  but 

wondered,  as  my  thoughts  went  back  to 

the  sad  and  beautiful  face  on  the  sand- 

190 


TKHlfe  anfc  fwsbanfc  191 

hills  of  Braunton  Burrows.  I  had  been 
virtually  made  free  of  the  house  in  Berke- 
ley Square,  free  to  drop  in  casually  to 
luncheon  and  to  propose  myself  to  dinner, 
and  thus  had  every  opportunity  of  study- 
ing George  Hood's  second  manage  even  as 
I  had  the  first.  It  was  impossible  not  to 
recognize  Mrs.  Hood's  charm  and  grace. 
She  had  in  very  liberal  measure  those 
gifts  of  self-possession  and  alert  intelli- 
gence that  seem  remarkable  to  us,  but  are 
almost  common  property  with  the  cultured 
of  her  countrywomen.  She  had  also  her 
full  share  of  the  exigeance  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  them  in  the  matrimonial  relation, 
yet  in  spite  of  it  I  was  quickly  able  to  see 
that  my  friend  had  not  surrendered  his  free- 
dom at  discretion.  On  most  points  where 
she  was  insistent  he  made  the  same  grace- 
ful show  of  yielding,  but  yielded  scarcely 
at  all  in  the  substance  of  any  question  that 
arose  between  them.  Without  doubt  she 
was  aware  of  her  failure  to  influence  him 
completely  as  she  wished,  and  a  little 
piqued  by  her  failure.  There  was  no  evi- 
dence, for  example,  of  George's  acquies- 


i9*  Mife  ant)  twsbanfc 

cence  in  her  desire  that  he  should  seek  a 
seat  in  Parliament.  He  never  absolutely 
declined  to  consider  the  project,  but  effec- 
tually defeated  it  by  making  no  effort 
whatever  to  realize  it ;  and  his  Fabian 
tactics  in  this  instance  were  only  typical 
of  his  conduct  in  regard  to  other  questions 
of  their  mutual  difference. 

I  made  a  third  at  one  of  these  discus- 
sions in  the  Berkeley  Square  house,  and 
it  happened,  as  Mrs.  Hood  assured  me, 
that  he  had  never  expressed  his  views  so 
freely  to  her  when  they  were  alone.  Mrs. 
Hood,  of  course,  was  the  eager,  animated 
talker,  full  of  schemes  for  her  husband, 
while  the  husband  himself  lay  in  an  atti- 
tude of  something  like  Oriental  indolence 
on  a  long-seated  armchair,  smoking  cigar- 
ettes and  listening  to  his  wife's  eloquence 
in  a  mood  of  humorous  cynicism,  both 
mood  and  attitude  suggesting  all  that  is 
most  remote  from  ambition. 

"  Mr.  Balfour  as  good  as  told  me  there 
was  a  safe  constituency  you  could  have," 
she  declared  emphatically.  "  He  said  he 
could  not  tell  me  the  name  now,  for  it  was 


TKHtfe  anfc  1busban&  193 

not  yet  vacant,  but  he  would  let  me  know 
as  soon  as  ever  he  was  at  liberty  to." 

"  Mr.  Balfour  ! "  Hood  commented. 
"You  have  made  up  your  mind,  then,  to 
run  me  as  a  Conservative,  Olga  ?  " 

Mrs.  Hood  disregarded  the  remark. 
"  If  only  you  would  bestir  yourself  to  do 
something ! " 

"  That  is  what  everybody  's  doing — be- 
stirring themselves — but  it  does  not  in  the 
least  follow  that  they  're  doing  anything  ; 
as  a  rule  the  contrary — the  more  bestir- 
ring, the  less  accomplishment." 

Mrs.  Hood  shrugged  her  shoulders 
hopelessly.  She  had  said  her  say.  Hood 
took  his  cigarette  from  his  mouth,  settled 
himself  more  luxuriously  than  before  in 
the  depths  of  the  long  chair,  and  then,  as 
if  he  deemed  the  guns  of  the  enemy  si- 
lenced for  the  moment,  began  to  do  a 
little  talking  on  his  own  account.  "  You 
see,"  he  said,  "  the  weak  point  of  politics 
as  a  profession  is  that  after  you  have 
slaved  and  slaved,  with  heaven  only  knows 
what  waste  of  breath  and  energy,  to  pass 
a  certain  measure,  the  opinion  of  the 


194  Mife  anD 

world  will  be  divided  as  equally  as  may 
be  as  to  whether  or  no  you  have  done 
more  good  than  harm  by  it.  If  you  were 
to  take  a  poll  of  the  English  world,  you 
would  find  opinions  fairly  divided  as  to 
whether  it  was  better  for  the  world  that 
Gladstone  has  lived  or  it  had  been  better 
that  he  never  had  been  born — that  is  a 
proposition  that  any  Conservative  will 
grant  you.  If  you  are  talking  to  a  Radi- 
cal, put  Beaconsfield  in  place  of  Gladstone, 
and  he  will  grant  you  the  proposition  just 
as  readily  as  the  other  will  grant  you  the 
other.  Well,  when  that  is  how  the  ac- 
count has  to  be  made  up  at  the  last,  it 
does  not  seem  as  if  all  the  labors,  even  of 
the  greatest  politicians,  could  be  of  any 
very  decisive  value." 

"  Do  you  mean  by  that  that  when  opin- 
ions are  equally  divided,  truth  lies  mid- 
way ?  "  Mrs.  Hood  asked  quickly.  "  There 
was  a  time  when  opinions  were  fairly 
equally  divided  as  to  whether  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth  or  the  earth  went  round 
the  sun." 

"And  what  difference  did  it  make  to 


Hdifc  anfc  DusbaTto  195 

human  happiness  when  the  question  was 
decided?"  Hood  asked. 

"  It  made  just  this  difference,  as  it  seems 
to  me,"  she  said,  "that  with  the  answer 
to  the  question  the  main  doctrine  of  the 
Christian  religion  passed  into  the  region 
of  the  unbelievable  at  once.  When  it  was 
thought  that  the  world  was  the  centre  and 
pivot  of  the  universe  it  did  not  seem  so 
incredible  that  the  Creator  should  take  so 
much  interest  in  it  as  to  send  down  His 
Son  that  the  shedding  of  Divine  blood 
might  expiate  human  sin.  When  that 
notion  of  the  earth  as  the  centre  and  pivot 
was  dispelled  and  the  earth  was  found  to 
be  on  the  rim  of  a  system  of  which  the 
sun  was  the  centre,  with  countless  other 
systems  around  fully  as  important,  then 
the  whole  idea  became  inconceivable.  It 
was  not  to  be  thought  that  the  Creator 
could  send  His  Son  into  each  of  these 
countless  planets  to  be  crucified  in  each 
for  the  sake  of  His  creatures'  salvation. 
That  would  be  a  little  tr  op  fort,  mon  ami" 

"  My  dear  Olga/'  Hood  replied  wearily, 
blowing  a  puff  of  smoke  away  as  if  other 


196  Wife  ant)  tmsbant) 

things  might  be  blown  aside  as  easily, 
"you  are  a  very  clever  woman,  so  clever 
that  I  almost  doubt  sometimes  if  your 
mind  is  quite  feminine.  As  soon  as  you 
begin  to  argue  I  am  reassured.  The 
centre,  if  by  that  you  mean  the  point  of 
greatest  interest — the  focus  of  interest  in 
the  universe — does  not  depend  on  posi- 
tion. It  is  the  point  of  highest  develop- 
ment, wherever  that  may  be.  We  have 
reason  to  think  that  in  such  of  the  uni- 
verse as  our  eyes,  at  the  small  ends  of  tele- 
scopes, make  visible  to  us,  the  point  of 
highest  development  is  with  human  be- 
ings, on  earth.  Therefore,  even  from  that 
point  of  view  there  is  no  reason  (except 
that  it  is  altogether  unreasonable,  as  hu- 
man reason  goes)  that  this  miracle  of 
miracles  should  not  have  been  performed 
on  the  earth,  just  because  the  earth  is  at 
the  circumference,  instead  of  the  centre, 
of  our  solar  system.  Its  locality  in  the 
system  is  no  argument.  And,  again,  the 
plurality  of  worlds,  which  it  pleases  you  for 
your  argument  to  suppose  inhabited,  cre- 
ates no  added  difficulty.  The  miracle  is 


Wife  anO  f>usban&  197 

difficult  of  credibility  indeed,  but  if  it  can 
be  believed  that  it  happened  once,  there  is 
no  difficulty  whatever  in  believing  that  it 
can  be  repeated.  Besides,  granting  your 
big  assumption  of  the  plurality  of  worlds 
supporting  something  like  what  we  call 
human  life,  it  does  not  follow  that  in  every 
human  society  there  was  a  '  fall '  requir- 
ing 'redemption.'  Your  most  orthodox 
might  concede  you  that." 

"  Of  course,  I  know  I  am  a  woman,  a 
poor  woman,"  Mrs.  Hood  replied,  with 
ironic  humility,  "  and  therefore  logic  is  not 
to  be  expected  of  me  ;  but  is  it  the  logical 
conclusion  from  what  you  have  been  say- 
ing that  the  best  way  for  you  to  pass  your 
life  is  to  be  an  utter  idler  ?  " 

Hood  turned  to  me  with  a  delighted 
smile.  "  What  a  disadvantage,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "mere  man  is  at  with  woman 
through  being  bound  by  rules  of  logic ! 
What  man  would  dare  the  strategy  of  a 
flanking  movement  like  that  ?  No,  Olga," 
he  continued  more  seriously,  "  I  am  not 
contending  that  the  ideal  life  for  me  or 
any  one  is  one  of  utter  idleness,  but  it  is 


198  TKHffe  ant) 

possible  to  lead  a  life  not  altogether  idle 
outside  of  politics  and  outside  of  any 
recognized  profession.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  call  a  man  an  idler  because  he  is 
not  earning  a  certain  number  of  hundreds 
or  thousands  a  year.  After  all,  that  is  not 
the  end  of  life." 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  knew  what  the 
end  of  life  was,"  she  retorted. 

"  I  wish  I  did,"  he  replied.  "  Shall  we 
say,  by  way  of  a  suggestion,  to  get  one 
inch  nearer  truth  ?  At  all  events,  I  do 
not  feel  that  I  should  fulfil  my  own  end 
in  life  if  I  tried  to  get  into  Parliament  in 
place  of  some  other  man  who  is  much 
more  eager  to  get  there,  and  probably  is 
much  better  fitted  for  it.  It  is  not  as  if 
there  was  any  lack,  fortunately  enough, 
of  people  to  carry  on  the  legislature  and 
the  government  of  the  country.  On  the 
contrary,  they  are  tumbling  over  each 
other  to  get  into  Parliament  and  to  get 
office — why  ?  is  one  of  the  eternal  mys- 
teries. I  suppose  man  is  so  constituted 
that  he  likes  to  manage  his  fellow-crea- 
tures." 


Mife  anfc  twsbanfc  199 

"  Certainly  woman  is  ;  but  she  does  not 
seem  always  to  get  her  way,"  Mrs.  Hood 
said,  with  a  whimsical  humor. 

"  They  are  all  so  busy,"  he  said  with  a 
weary  sigh,  "  like  a  hive  of  bees,  but 
they  make  so  little  honey.  And  '  God  in 
heaven,  what  can  it  matter  ? '  as  some  one 
says — Free  Trade  or  Protection,  a  little 
richer  or  a  little  poorer  ?  " 

"  But,  George,  you  cannot  deny  that 
humanity  has  advanced.  It  would  not 
have  advanced  but  for  the  efforts  made 
by  humanity." 

"  Would  it  not  ? "  he  asked.  "  It 
seems  to  me  humanity  has  a  tendency 
to  go  along  in  the  direction  that  de- 
mands least  effort,  in  spite  of  the  busy 
bees.  I  grant  you  the  advance  though, 
although  it  is  a  tremendous  indictment 
of  the  scheme  of  human  evolution  that 
such  things  can  be  possible  after  all  these 
centuries  as  occurred  in  Manchuria — or, 
to  escape  playing  the  rdle  of  the  self- 
righteous  Briton — shall  we  say  in  South 
Africa?" 

"  Nature  has  always  been  regardless  of 


200  Mife  ant)  Dusbanfc 

the  individual,  so  long  as  she  can  improve 
the  type." 

"  Nature  !  yes,"  he  agreed,  almost  with 
energy.  "  But  you  surely  would  not  hold 
up  Nature  for  our  guidance — in  this  at 
least  ?  It  is  Nature's  greatest  triumph  to 
have  evolved  man  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  crea- 
ture capable  of  sitting  in  judgment  on 
Nature's  methods  and  finding  them  cruel, 
barbarous.  She  has  created  something 
that  has  to  be  better  than  the  laws  by 
which  she  has  created  him.  He  has  to 
fight  with  and  on  the  side  of  Nature, 
evolution,  God  if  you  will,  to  render  the 
type  more  perfect — and  that  means  that 
he  has  to  be  a  great  deal  better  than 
Nature  would  have  him  be.  This  he  can 
only  do  by  obedience  to  the  guide,  the 
daemon,  with  which  Nature,  or  the  God 
of  Nature,  has  gifted  every  man  in  some 
degree." 

"  And  your  daemon  tells  you,"  said  Mrs. 
Hood  with  an  irony  rather  Socratic,  "  that 
you  ought  not  to  go  into  Parliament  ?  " 

"  It  seems  indicated  to  me  that  I  should 
be  wasting  my  time  if  I  did." 


TKHtfe  ant)  tmsbanfc  201 

"  Your  time  !  And  that  is  a  commodity 
so  very  precious  ! " 

"  You  are  getting  frivolous,  Olga.  I 
like  you  ever  so  much  better  so  than  when 
you  are  merely  logical." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE    BONDS   OF    MATRIMONY 

THE  hospitality  affected  by  the  Hoods 
took  the  shape  of  small  dinner  parties,  at 
which  conversation  might  be  general, 
rather  than  of  the  banquets  of  a  score 
of  guests  and  upwards,  which  make  virtu- 
ally several  small  dinner  parties  of  the 
one  ;  and  in  these  select  circles  there  often 
was  much  of  that  striking  of  the  flint  and 
steel  together  in  which  the  conversational 
powers  of  husband  and  wife  were  con- 
spicuous. But  when  they  dined  alone, 
with  myself  as  a  third,  as  often  happened, 
there  was  little  of  this  display  of  fireworks. 
In  a  short  time  Mrs.  Hood  was  good 
enough  to  give  me  that  best  proof  of 
friendship  which  consists  in  being  able  to 
remain  silent  in  presence  of  another,  with- 
out embarrassment,  if  the  mood  of  silence 

202 


Ube  Bonfcs  of  flDatrimoni?        203 

is  upon  one ;  and  I  soon  began  to  see  that 
she  was  one  of  those  brilliant  talkers  who 
require  a  gallery.  George  Hood  himself 
had  practically  said  as  much  to  me,  with- 
out any  intention  of  finding  fault  or  hint- 
ing at  disappointment  or  disillusion  in  his 
wife's  society.  And  yet  I  felt  that  he  had 
suffered  a  certain  disillusion,  notwithstand- 
ing. It  was  so  like  him  to  expect  the  too 
much  and  the  impossible,  that  I  was  in  no 
way  surprised.  The  flint  must  find  the 
steel  with  its  edge  fresh,  and  not  dulled  by 
use,  if  it  is  to  give  its  most  flashing  re- 
sponse. In  spite  of  his  disillusion,  Hood 
was  immensely  proud  of  his  wife,  and  loved 
her,  as  it  was  in  him  to  love,  with  an  affec- 
tion that  was  always  at  work  to  idealize 
its  object.  Nevertheless  he  had  not  long 
been  back  in  London  before  I  found  that 
he  was  losing  all  that  he  had  seemed  to 
recover  of  his  old  indolent  and  comfort- 
able repose.  The  nerve  strain  appeared  to 
hold  him  again  in  its  grip,  and  his  eyes  had 
the  suggestion  of  wakefulness  at  night, 
which  is  so  pitiful  to  see. 

I  have  written  that  it  was  pitiful,  and  it 


204        ftbe  3Bon&s  of  /IDatrimonp 

was  now,  just  at  this  point  of  his  career, 
that  an  immense  pity  for  him  began  to 
take  hold  on  me.  It  was  one  thing  to  feel 
the  emotion  of  poignant  anger  against  him 
as  I  looked  at  the  lovely  sad  face  on  the 
sand-hills ;  but  when  I  saw  his  own  face 
scarcely  less  sad,  I  became  in  a  sense  the 
more  pitiful  because  I  knew  him  to  bear 
the  additional  pain  of  the  consciousness 
that  his  grief  was  of  his  own  making,  aris- 
ing out  of  the  sadness  of  heart  that  I  felt 
sure  he  must  be  suffering  on  account  of  the 
grief  that  he  had  brought  upon  Gracia.  I 
supposed  that  I  could  analyse  his  feeling 
accurately,  thus :  he  had  sinned  against 
the  one  woman,  being  resolved  to  bear  as 
he  might  with  the  remorse  of  conscience 
on  her  account ;  and,  thus  having  acted, 
found  the  reward  of  his  sin — that  is  to  say, 
the  society  of  his  wife — less  valuable  to 
him,  less  pleasant  to  him,  than  he  had  an- 
ticipated. Pleasant  he  found  her  com- 
panionship, no  doubt ;  but  the  value,  in 
drawing  out  that  which  was  best  in  him, 
in  keeping  him  ever  at  his  intellectual  best, 
perhaps  with  some  brilliant  eventual  result 


ZTbe  Bonfcs  of  /IDatrimonp        205 

that  the  world  would  recognize — that  im- 
agined value  he  found  to  be  delusive. 
And  as  he  became  conscious  of  his  disap- 
pointment, he  became  at  the  same  time 
conscious  of  the  tie  that  he  had  formed 
for  himself  by  this  new  form  of  contract 
with  a  woman,  leaving  him  so  much  less 
freedom  than  that  former  one.  I  could 
perceive  him  chafing  in  the  bonds  of  social 
convention  that  he  had  forged  for  him- 
self— and  had  knowingly  sinned  in  forg- 
ing, in  that  he  had  given  grievous  pain  by 
so  doing  to  a  woman  who  had  offered  up 
her  life  to  him — as  his  wife  demanded  his 
escort  for  this  or  that  party  or  this  or  that 
country-house  visit  that  had  no  attractions 
for  him.  His  wife  loved  him,  and  she 
was  an  American,  either  of  which  alone 
perhaps  would  have  sufficed  to  make  her 
exigeante ;  the  two  together  conspired  to 
add  an  element  of  jealousy  to  her  exi- 
geance.  There  followed  as  a  matter  of  in- 
evitable course,  the  small,  the  injudicious, 
and  the  untimely  recriminations  on  her 
part  of  the  "  Ah,  it  does  not  amuse  you  to 
be  with  me"  type  that  is  so  familiar  and 


206        Ube  JSonfcs  of 


more  than  slightly  vulgar  in  its  banality. 
Suspicions  followed  on  the  part  of  the  wife, 
suspicions  absolutely  groundless,  as  I  be- 
lieved, so  far  as  concerned  any  infidelity 
even  of  thought  on  the  husband's  part,  yet 
suspicions  which  necessarily  meant  weari- 
ness and  boredom  for  the  husband  and  a 
possible  turning  of  his  heart  for  brighter 
companionship  and  friendlier  sympathy  to 
other  women,  which  in  itself  might  afford 
ground  for  the  very  suspicions  that  had 
been  in  great  measure  the  cause  of  such 
first  turning.  Moreover  I  had  to  confess 
to  myself  that  I  could  recognize  some  real 
grounds,  of  the  negative  kind,  for  Mrs. 
Hood's  suspicions,  for  I  was  myself  sur- 
prised by  her  husband's  frequent  absence 
from  the  house.  In  a  business  man,  or  a 
professional  man,  possibly  in  a  golf  player, 
it  would  have  been  intelligible,  but  Hood 
was  none  of  these.  He  was  much  of  an 
indoor  man,  and  yet  I  seldom  found  him 
at  home.  Once  or  twice  his  wife  had  said 
to  me,  not  without  a  sub-acid  flavor  in  the 
tone,  "  I  never  see  George  now  ;  he  is  so 
much  away." 


ZTbe  Bonos  of  /IDatrimong        207 

Then  I  inquired  where  he  went.  She 
looked  at  me  a  moment  as  if  surprised  that 
I  should  ask  ;  then  said,  "  I  do  not  know. 
I  do  not  question  him." 

From  what  I  had  observed  and  had 
heard  when  husband  and  wife  were  to- 
gether I  knew  that  this  was  not  precisely 
an  accurate  statement,  but  without  doubt 
the  lady  believed  it  as  she  made  it.  On  the 
contrary,  being,  I  have  said,  an  American, 
and  also  a  woman  in  love,  she  often 
subjected  her  husband  to  a  catechism 
that  I,  as  a  bachelor,  deemed  extremely 
troublesome  and  also  extremely  injudi- 
cious. George  Hood  writhed  under  the 
questioning,  but  on  the  whole  bore  it  well, 
with  his  usual  humorous  cynicism,  and  had 
the  wit  to  throw  it  off  lightly  in  his  answers. 
Seriously  taken  it  would  have  been  intoler- 
able. I  wondered  that  Mrs.  Hood  did  not 
attempt  to  get  information  from  one  whom 
she  looked  on  as  her  husband's  chief  friend, 
but  she  always  spared  me  her  questions. 
One  day,  however,  she  spoke  of  a  picture 
shop,  close  to  the  club,  at  which  she  had 
seen  an  old  print  that  she  admired.  "  I 


208        ZTbe  Bonfcs  of 


was  in  a  hurry  when  I  was  passing,"  she 
said.  "  Some  day  I  mean  to  go  in  and 
look  at  it  carefully  and  ask  the  price." 

"  Let  me  look  at  it  for  you  and  ask,"  I 
suggested. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  answered  carelessly.  "  I 
will  get  George  to  do  it.  He  is  so  often 
at  the  club." 

"  At  the  club  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Why, 
he  is  never  there  !  " 

The  very  slighest,  yet  sufficiently  signifi- 
cant, change  of  expression  passed  across 
Mrs.  Hood's  face  for  a  moment  and  was 
gone  again  ;  but  it  had  been  enough  to 
make  me  regret  keenly  the  careless  truth 
I  had  blurted  out.  She  had  fairly  caught 
me  in  a  trap,  and  the  fact  that  she  went 
on  with  perfectly  unchanged  tone  to  dis- 
cuss the  points  of  the  print  with  which 
she  had  ground-baited  her  trap,  filled  me 
with  a  sense  of  uneasy  doubt  whether  I 
had  often  before  been  snared  by  her  in 
like  manner  —  only  more  subtly  —  so  that  I 
had  not  even  felt  the  teeth  of  the  trap 
and  had  been  unaware  of  the  trapping. 
Had  she  pursued  the  subject  of  George's 


Bonds  of  /iDatrfmons        209 


attendance,  or  non-attendance,  at  the  club 
further  I  should  have  feared  her  less, 
though  to  have  done  so  would  really  have 
proved  her  yet  more  subtle,  for  it  would 
have  concealed  her  subtlety.  As  it  was, 
I  determined  henceforward  to  be  on  my 
guard,  but  already  I  knew  that  my  first 
guard  had  been  passed. 

The  inferences  to  be  drawn  were  ob- 
vious. George  was  absent  from  his  house 
during  hours  for  which  he  did  not  give 
full  account  when  questioned  by  this  wife 
whose  exigeance  evoked  much  question- 
ing, or  if  the  account  was  full  it  was  fal- 
lacious, for  if  he  implied  that  he  was  often 
at  the  club  the  implication  was  a  false 
one.  I  asked  other  members  if  they  had 
seen  him  there,  and  inquired  of  the  hall 
porter  ;  the  answers  were  unanimous,  that 
he  came  hardly  ever.  Of  course  this  was 
not  the  only  club  in  London  of  which  he 
was  a  member,  but  it  was  the  one  which 
Mrs.  Hood  had  indicated  distinctly  that 
she  understood  him  to  use. 

One  night,  however,  or,  more  strictly 
speaking,  in  the  small  hours  of  one  morn- 


Ube  JSont)s  of  /IDatrimons 

ing,  it  did  happen  to  me  to  see  him  at 
the  club.  One  by  one  those  with  whom 
I  had  talked  and  smoked  or  played  bridge 
had  gone,  and  I  was  waiting  lazily  on, 
only  wondering  when  I  could  rouse  my- 
self enough  to  walk  the  few  hundreds  of 
yards  to  my  rooms,  when  George  Hood's 
familiar  voice  aroused  me,  and  even  as  I 
recognized  it  I  noticed  at  the  same  time 
that  it  had  in  it  a  peculiar  timbre.  It  rang 
with  a  clear  resonance  that  was  not  usual, 
and  the  words  came  quicker,  free  from  his 
habitual  lazy  drawl.  The  substance  of  his 
speech  too  was  not  altogether  like  him. 

"  I  am  so  glad,"  he  said,  "to  find  you 
alone.  I  want  to  have  a  talk  with  you. 
My  wife  has  been  doing  me  the  honor  of 
being  jealous  of  me.  It  was  a  high  com- 
pliment, of  course,  but  it  is  boring." 
"  Yes  ?  "  I  said.  "  Who  is  the  lady  ?  " 
He  laughed  in  genuine  amusement  at 
the  question.  "  That  is  just  it,"  he  said. 
"  Cherchez  la  femme.  That  is  exactly 
what  my  wife  is  doing.  It  is  exactly  what 
I  do  not  know — what  no  one  knows.  It 
is  amusing." 


ZIbe  JBonfcs  ot  flDatrfmonp        211 

"  You  said  just  now  that  it  was  boring  ?  " 

"  So  it  is.  It  is  both  in  turns — like 
life.  What  I  said  first  is  more  true  than 
what  I  said  last.  It  is  more  boring  than 
amusing." 

"  You  are  rather  enigmatical.  Can  you 
not  put  it  all  a  little  more  plainly,  with  a 
little  more  detail  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  I  can.  It  is 
very  late.  Do  you  want  to  go  to  bed? 
For  my  part  I  never  felt  more  wide  awake 
in  my  life." 

"  I  was  fearfully  sleepy  a  minute  ago, 
before  you  came  in.  I  am  quite  wide 
awake  too  now.  We  cannot  talk  here  all 
night,  though.  They  will  want  to  shut 
up  the  club.  Come  over  to  my  rooms. 
We  shall  be  quiet  there." 


CHAPTER   XIX 

FUMES   OF    OBLIVION 

As  we  crossed  the  street  he  passed  his 
arm  through  mine.  In  another  man  this 
might  have  meant  nothing,  but  it  was  a 
form  of  masculine  caress  that  I  had  never 
known  my  friend  to  use  before,  and  con- 
firmed the  impression  given  me  by  his 
words  that  he  was  not  in  quite  a  normal 
state.  Before  we  had  left  the  club  I  had 
glanced  at  him  sharply  to  see  whether  he 
had  been  dining  or  supping  too  well.  I 
had  never  had  such  an  idea  about  him 
before,  and  a  look  had  been  enough  to 
assure  me  that  there  was  no  ground  for 
it  now.  His  step  was  perfectly  steady, 
his  hand  as  it  lay  on  my  arm  was  firm, 
and  he  spoke  with  a  fluent  speed  and 
lucidity  that  argued  an  even  and  excep- 
tional clearness  of  head. 

212 


jf umes  of  ©blipion  213 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  you  ? "  I 
asked,  as  soon  as  we  were  in  my  rooms. 

"  Matter  with  me  !  Nothing,"  he  said, 
looking  at  me  keenly,  almost  with  sus- 
picion, so  that  I  feared  for  a  moment  that 
my  unguarded  question  might  quench  the 
source  of  his  fluent  speech.  But  the  im- 
pulse of  his  mood  was  too  insistent  to  be 
stayed,  and  he  had  scarcely  sat  down  in 
his  chair  before  he  began  his  explanations. 

"  My  wife,  I  have  told  you,  does  me 
the  honor  to  be  jealous  of  me.  Possibly 
you  may  have  noticed  it — that  she  takes 
me  to  account  for  all  the  minutes  of  my 
day,  and  of  all  of  them,  it  is  true,  I  can- 
not give  an  account.  I  think  if  there  was 
one  mood  of  a  woman  more  than  another 
that  would  dispose  me  to  seek  consolation 
in  other  feminine  sympathy  it  would  be 
just  this.  Lately,  it  is  true,  she  found  a 
reason,  or  what  she  deemed  to  be  a  reason 
—I  am  certain  of  the  fact,  for  I  noticed  a 
change  in  her  mood  to  me  directly  after 
the  very  moment  of  the  incident — for  an 
access  of  her  doubts.  By  an  unfortunate 
coincidence  she  came  into  my  study  at 


214  df  umes  of  Oblivion 

the  moment  that  I  was  reading  a  paper 
which  it  was  imperative  that  she  should 
not  see.  I  had  no  resource  but  to  scuffle 
it  away  as  best  I  could  into  the  drawer  in 
my  bureau,  in  the  hope  that  she  would 
not  notice  my  action.  She  did  notice  it. 
I  knew  directly  that  she  had  seen  it  by 
her  glance  of  suspicion,  and  I  knew  for 
some  time  afterwards  that  she  had  seen  it 
and  had  drawn  certain  inferences  from  it 
by  the  change  in  her  attitude  to  me.  Is 
all  that  interesting  ?  Not  very  interesting 
yet,  I  think.  Had  that  been  all  it  would 
be  a  very  uninteresting  story,  extremely 
banal — just  a  woman's  letter  to  a  man 
that  he  could  not  or  would  not  show  to 
his  wife.  I  did  not  come  to  tell  you  a 
nursery  tale  like  that.  What  was  inter- 
esting was  Olga's  own  action  and  its 
denouement.  She  had  me  watched  by  de- 
tectives, and  at  length  she  found,  I  sup- 
pose, what  she  wanted,  or  what  she  did 
not  want ;  she  found,  at  least,  where  I 
went  to  in  those  absences  of  which  she 
wearied  me  so  to  give  her  an  account. 
And  when  she  found  out  she  was,  I  sup- 


jfumes  of  ©blivion  215 

pose,  more  or  less  happy.  At  all  events 
she  has  been  entirely  different  to  me." 

"In  what  way  different  ?  " 

"If  I  explain  to  you,  you  must  under- 
stand clearly  that  it  is  explanation  only, 
not  complaint.  Heaven  knows  that  it  is 
not  I  that  have  ground  for  complaint 
against  my  wife  in  our  relations.  Entirely 
the  contrary  is  the  case ;  it  is  she  that 
has  all  the  ground  for  complaint.  I  have 
very  much  indeed  for  which  to  be  grate- 
ful to  her ;  but  at  one  time,  until  she  had 
satisfied  her  mind  by  her  discovery,  she 
was  —  what  shall  I  say?  —  well,  trying. 
She  was  difficult.  '  Uncertain,  coy,  and 
hard  to  please,'  the  hackneyed  old  words 
of  the  poet  who  knew  women  so  well, 
have  not  been  beaten.  Perhaps  that 
might  describe  it  best.  Nothing  that  I 
did,  or  did  not,  was  right.  There  was  no 
pleasing  her ;  and  as  I  have  said,  and  as 
you  have  seen,  she  catechised  me  end- 
lessly. Perhaps  if  I  had  sworn  at  her  it 
would  have  been  better  for  both  of  us, 
but  I  have  not  the  faculty  in  me  of  swear- 
ing at  a  woman ;  and,  besides,  she  had  a 


216  ffumes  of 

show  of  right  because  I  could  neither 
account  fully  for  my  goings  nor  had  the 
strength  of  mind  to  tell  her  roundly  I 
would  not  be  questioned.  You  see  the 
impasse." 

"  No,"  I  said,  "  I  do  not.  I  do  not  see 
that  you  have,  or  had,  arrived  at  an  im- 
passe at  all.  I  have  not  yet  been  given 
any  reason  why  you  could  not  explain 
your  absences  to  your  wife.  That  would 
have  been  a  way  out,  and  until  I  under- 
stand more  fully,  it  is  obliged  to  seem  a 
simple  one." 

He  nodded  at  this,  with  a  smiling  com- 
prehension. "  Until  you  understand  more 
fully,"  he  repeated.  "  You  quickly  shall." 
He  got  up  from  his  chair.  "  It  is  a  warm 
night,"  he  said.  "  Will  you  come  for  a 
little  walk,  or  drive,  if  you  like,  with  me  ? 
Then  I  will  show  you." 

I  think  with  any  other  man  of  my  ac- 
quaintance I  should  have  parleyed  and 
asked  explanations,  perhaps  made  excuses. 
With  Hood  I  was  so  used  to  acting  on  his 
suggestions  and  to  find  reward  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  revelations  they  resulted  in, 


jfumes  of  ©blivion  217 

that  it  hardly  occurred  to  me  to  parley. 
The  sleepy  mood  had  long  passed  and  I 
was  quite  inclined  for  a  stroll  with  an  un- 
known goal. 

There  are  certain  reasons,  which  will  be 
quite  obvious,  for  not  indicating  the  goal 
precisely.  We  went  across  Piccadilly  Cir- 
cus through  those  curious  streets  that  are 
haunted  by  the  theatrical  people,  pas- 
sing through  Covent  Garden,  where  the 
night  wanderers  were  yielding  to  the 
awakening  business  of  the  great  market, 
vans  already  arriving  from  suburban  gar- 
dens, and  cart  horses  steaming  out  on  the 
chill  of  coming  dawn.  We  stopped  at  the 
door  of  a  large  house  in  a  mean  street. 
Hood  looked  back  down  the  street  to  see 
that  no  one  was  following  immediately, 
and  knocked  twice  and  gently.  The  door 
was  opened  after  a  few  seconds  by  a  weary- 
eyed,  foreign  night-porter,  who  gave  Hood 
a  candle,  without  a  word  passing,  and 
nodded.  We  went  up  the  stairs.  A 
faint  but  pungent  smell  pervaded  the  place. 
Hood  opened  a  door  on  the  first-floor 
landing  and  we  went  into  a  room  of  which 


218  jfumes  of  ©blivion 

the  only  piece  of  furniture  at  all  remark- 
able was  a  low  wide  couch  running  most 
of  the  length  of  one  wall.  The  sickly 
pungent  smell  was  stronger  here  than  on 
the  stairs. 

"You  know  what  the  smell  is,  I  sup- 
pose ? "  he  said,  as  he  watched  me  in- 
haling. 

"  I  am  not  sure,"  I  answered  with  hesi- 
tation. 

"  Oh,  yes  you  are,"  he  said  with  a  nerv- 
ous laugh.  "  It  is  opium." 

I  understood.  I  understood  that  this 
was  his  way  of  making  confession  to  me, 
whom  he  had  come  to  look  on  rather  in  the 
light  of  his  father  confessor.  I  under- 
stood that  he  had  chosen  this  way,  the  way 
of  showing  me  the  fact,  rather  than  make 
the  difficult,  the  degrading,  confession  in 
words.  I  looked,  I  saw  the  wretched- 
ness of  it.  I  realized  all  that  it  meant, 
the  shame ;  disgust  and  pity  strove  to- 
gether for  the  chief  place  in  my  heart, 
and  I  stood  silent,  finding  no  word  to 
say. 

"  Can  you  bear  it  ?  "  he  asked.     "  Shall 


3fumes  of  Oblivion  219 

we  sit  here  a  little  while  or  shall  we  go 
outside  ?  I  want  to  tell  you  about  it."  He 
spoke  in  a  strangely  humble  way,  as  if 
with  a  sense  of  his  degradation,  and  an 
anxiety  that  was  pitiful  to  hear  my  verdict 
on  him. 

"  I  think,  if  you  don't  mind,"  I  said,  in 
a  tone  that  I  felt  to  be  cold  and  unsym- 
pathetic, "  that  I  would  rather  go  outside." 
Then  I  added,  my  heart  smiting  me  with 
a  deep  pity  for  him,  "  By  Heaven,  I  am 
sorry  for  you." 

He  did  not  answer  that,  and  we  went 
out  again  into  the  summer  night,  now 
turning  to  dawn. 

"  That  is  the  explanation,"  he  said, 
presently.  "  That  is  the  mistress  of 
whom  my  wife  was  jealous.  She  knows  it 
now — I  know  that  she  knows  it — and  she 
too,  like  you,  is  sorry  for  me — is  good  to 
me.  It  is  more  than  I  deserve." 

"As  for  what  you  deserve  I  do  not 
know,"  I  said,  "  but  there  is  another  feel- 
ing towards  you  in  which  Mrs.  Hood  and 
I  must  share,  that  is  in  the  determination 
to  help  you  to  free  yourself  from  this" — 


220  jfumes  of  ©blivion 

it  seemed  better  to  leave  the  pronoun  by 
itself  to  indicate  my  meaning. 

He  shook  his  head  sadly.  "  I  do  not 
know,"  he  answered.  "  I  am  afraid  it  is 
impossible.  I  am  a  slave,  fast  bound. 
Several  times  I  have  done  my  best  to  shake 
off  the  fetters,  but  they  have  always 
fastened  again  on  me.  I  know  myself  too 
well  to  have  any  hope,  even  with  your 
good  help  and  Olga's." 

"  How  did  you  come  to  it? "  I  asked. 

"  How  did  I  come  to  it  ?  By  gradual 
steps,  such  as,  I  suppose,  are  the  begin- 
nings of  most  descents  that  are  precipitous 
enough  in  the  end.  In  the  first  place  I 
took  it  as  a  kind  of  medicine.  My  heart 
gives  me  trouble  at  times,  and  pain — it  is 
an  inheritance  from  my  father,  I  suppose — 
and  the  opium  allayed  it.  Then  I  have  had 
troubles,  troubles  a  good  many  of  which 
you  know,  but  some — one  in  particular — 
that  you  do  not  know.  Perhaps  I  shall 
tell  you  some  day,  and  when  I  do  you  will 
think  even  worse  of  me,  if  that  is  at  all 
possible,  than  you  must  think  now.  I  do 
not  mind.  I  never  did  mind  much,  show- 


jfumes  ot  ©blivion  221 

ing  the  worst  of  myself  to  you  ;  and  they 
say  that  the  opium  habit  takes  all  self-re- 
spect from  a  man.  I  can  quite  believe  it. 
And  besides  the  actual  troubles  that  are 
objective,  there  is  the  subjective  trouble 
of  a  brain  that  never  rests.  I  know  you 
have  thought  of  me — you  have  even 
spoken  to  me  of  myself  so  sometimes — as 
possessing  a  peculiarly  blessed  faculty  for 
doing  nothing.  I  can  assure  you  you 
never  were  more  mistaken.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve there  is  another  man  in  the  world  so 
absolutely  incapable  of  doing  really  no- 
thing, of  letting  his  brain  be  at  rest  from  the 
continual  treadmill  of  thought,  as  I.  And 
this  drug  enables  my  brain  at  least  to  be 
at  rest.  That  is  its  negative  boon.  But 
it  has  many  others  on  the  positive  side. 
It  is  the  mistake  of  most  of  you  others, 
who  never  have  lived  in  the  world  that  lies 
on  the  other  side  of  the  opium  haze,  to 
think  that  all  it  does  for  you  is  negative, 
soothing,  narcotic.  It  has  its  stimulating, 
energizing  influence  too.  Of  course  I  am 
not  so  foolish  as  to  deny  that  the  reaction 
is  terrible,  that  the  sum  total  of  the  effect 


222  ffumes  of  ©blivton 

is  perdition.    I  am  not  walking  on  the  down 
gradient  blindfold." 

Unless  one  has  the  misfortune  to  be  a 
person  with  no  interest  whatever  in  human 
nature,  in  which  case  the  world  must  be 
a  very  dull  place  to  live  in  indeed,  it  must 
be  obvious  that  I  had  here,  in  the  house- 
hold of  two  in  Berkeley  Square,  as  satis- 
factory a  problem  for  study  as  life  often 
has  to  offer.  Up  to  a  certain  point  I  had 
traced  with  grieved  sympathy,  the  course 
of  my  friend's  married  life  running,  as  it  so 
often  does,  in  a  world  of  human  misunder- 
standings, according  to  one  or  other  version 
of  the  never-old  comedy  of  Much  Ado 
about  Nothing — husband  and  wife  truly  at- 
tached to  each  other,  yet  drifting  mis- 
erably apart.  There  arrived  a  definite 
moment  at  which  all  this  was  changed.  I 
was  aware  of  the  change,  even  before  the 
moment  and  the  reason  of  it  were  revealed 
to  me  by  my  visit  under  Hood's  guidance 
to  his  opium  den.  Up  to  that  moment 
Mrs.  Hood  had  treated  her  husband  with 
a  petulance  and  a  disposition  to  find  fault 
and  make  difficulties  that  were  extremely 


jfumes  of  ©blivion  223 

trying  for  him,  as  I  had  no  doubt,  but  yet 
were  by  no  means  inconsistent,  in  my 
judgment,  with  a  very  real  affection. 
Starting  straight  away,  as  I  was  able  now 
to  recognize,  from  the  moment  when  she 
made  the  pitiable  discovery  which  Hood 
himself  had  revealed  to  me,  she  became 
good  to  him,  with  a  protecting  half- 
motherly  tenderness  that  was  infinitely 
touching  to  witness  for  one  who  knew,  as 
I  knew,  its  motive  source.  The  situation 
had,  besides,  its  piquancy  ;  for  while  Hood 
was  fully  aware  that  his  wife  was  ac- 
quainted with  his  degrading  weakness, 
she  was  playing  her  part  in  blissful  uncon- 
sciousness that  he  knew  her  to  be  aware  of 
it.  I  learned  from  Hood  that  she  had 
said  nothing  to  him  of  her  knowledge,  and 
made  no  direct  attempt  to  deter  him  ;  but 
she  laid  herself  out  with  a  tact  that  she  had 
not  shown  before,  and  a  devotion  that  was 
unmistakable,  to  devise  any  amusement 
or  interest  that  her  husband  could  enter 
into,  with  the  view,  no  doubt,  of  occupy- 
ing his  thoughts  so  that  his  temptation 
should  have  less  opportunity  to  attack  him. 


224  Jfumes  of  ©blivion 

In  the  meantime,  while  she  said  nothing, 
I  was  learning  by  degrees  the  fatal  extent 
to  which  the  habit  had  hold  of  my  poor 
friend.  Of  course  I  did  my  best,  the 
little  futile  best  that  in  the  like  cases 
is  the  utmost  one  can  do,  to  induce  him 
to  desist  from  it,  reiterating  all  the  very 
obvious  arguments  which  he  knew  by 
heart,  and  had  conned  over  to  himself 
a  thousand  times,  the  necessity  of  taking 
a  grip  on  himself,  and  so  on.  The  argu- 
ments were  obvious  and  anything  rather 
than  original,  but  there  is  a  singular  qual- 
ity in  the  human  mind  by  which  arguments 
that  are  perfectly  well  known  come  to  have 
a  fresh  force  by  repetition.  It  is  the  qual- 
ity on  which  all  the  force  of  suggestion 
depends.  By  the  reiteration  of  these  very 
commonplace  arguments,  aided  and  abet- 
ted very  powerfully  by  the  tender  solici- 
tude of  his  wife,  which  the  very  fact  that 
she  had  the  delicacy  to  conceal  her  know- 
ledge of  his  fatal  habit  made  perhaps  the 
more  appealing,  it  did  appear  to  me  that 
some  ground  was  being  gained,  that  Hood 
was  strengthening  himself,  I  knew  at  the 


jfumes  of  ©blMon  225 

cost  of  a  severe  struggle.  He  told  me 
with  satisfaction  that  he  was  placing  longer 
and  longer  intervals  between  his  visits  to 
the  vilely  smelling  den  in  Soho,  and  that 
the  visits  were  shortening  in  duration.  I 
began  to  have  a  hope.  And  then,  all  in  a 
day — I  knew  not  for  a  long  while  by  what 
disastrous  accident — the  whole  course  of 
the  drama  in  which  my  r6le  was  that  of 
chief  inspector  altered.  Two  days  before 
I  had  seen  Hood  and  his  wife  together 
and  they  had  been  cheery — she  gently 
solicitous,  he  with  his  charmingly  humor- 
ous response — just  as  I  had  known  them 
for  some  while  past.  Two  days  later  I 
came  to  dine  with  them  at  home  to  make 
up  a  party  of  four  for  bridge.  I  had  not 
been  two  minutes  in  the  room  before  I 
was  aware  of  a  change  in  the  atmosphere. 
The  change  was  in  Mrs.  Hood.  Her 
manner  to  her  husband  had  changed  at 
once  from  that  of  a  woman  with  whose  love 
an  element  of  the  protective  and  the  mater- 
nal feeling  mingles.  It  had  changed  to 
the  manner  of  a  woman  firmly  resolved  to 
do  her  duty  to  the  man  she  has  married, 


226  jfumes  of  ©blivion 

to  behave  with  a  correctness  to  which  no 
exception  could  be  taken.  But  all  the 
tenderness  was  gone.  In  its  place  was  a 
courtesy,  a  coldness,  a  distance  that  hardly 
was  consistent  even  with  affection. 

It  was  evident  to  me,  who  knew  him  so 
well,  that  Hood  perceived  the  changed 
manner — it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
do  that.  What  was  not  so  essentially  in 
the  nature  of  things  was  that  he  was  no  less 
evidently  taken  aback  by  it.  Clearly  he 
had  no  knowledge  of  its  cause.  Again  and 
again,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  I  saw 
him  glance  at  his  wife  in  surprise  at  her 
glacially  polite  tone.  At  other  moments 
I  would  find  her,  thinking  that  she  was 
unobserved  either  by  him  or  me,  looking 
at  her  husband  with  an  air  of  scrutiny  and 
study,  as  if  she  had  made  some  new  dis- 
covery in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  and  was 
seeking  an  explanation  or  a  fuller  account 
of  it.  The  situation  was  an  intensely  in- 
teresting one,  but  painfully  distressing. 
The  moment  was  a  crucial  one  in  George 
Hood's  life — that  I  realized  very  clearly. 
If  he  relapsed  now  there  would  be  little 


ffumes  of  ©blivion  227 

chance  indeed  of  his  salvation,  and  few 
days  only  had  gone,  since  the  bridge  party 
at  which  I  had  observed  the  change  in  his 
wife's  manner,  when  I  met  him  again,  and 
was  shocked  by  the  alteration  in  his  looks. 
All  the  old  signs  were  there ;  the  pallor, 
the  bistre  circles  below  the  eyes,  the  laxity 
of  the  facial  muscles,  that  told  of  a  re- 
lapse to  the  worst  depths  of  his  besetting 
weakness. 

Clearly  he  was  aware  of  his  state,  and 
was  ashamed  of  it,  for  he  would  hardly 
speak  to  me  or  meet  my  eyes,  in  which 
he  found  perhaps  some  quite  uninten- 
tional hint  of  accusation. 

And  if  he  was  thus  changed  by  the 
sudden  withdrawal  of  his  wife's  tender- 
ness, a  change  scarcely  less  apparent  and 
painful  was  to  be  read  on  her  face  also. 
That  she  had  suffered  some  kind  of  shock 
was  very  obvious. 

At  their  small  dinners  she  was  as  charm- 
ing a  hostess  as  before  ;  beautiful,  with 
her  tall,  sinuous  figure  and  refined  face ; 
but  her  husband's  humor  was  no  longer 
the  steel  that  the  flint  of  her  wit  struck 


228  JFumes  of  ©blivion 

upon.  For  him,  or  in  response  to  him, 
she  had  no  word  to  say  except  the  banal 
words  that  were  necessary,  and  her  face, 
like  his  own,  began  to  wear  the  pitiful  un- 
mistakable signs  of  the  nerve  strain — the 
dark  rings  below  the  eyes  and  all  the  rest. 
It  is  a  strain  that  the  more  delicate  physi- 
cal nature  of  the  woman  does  not  with- 
stand as  a  man's  constitution  withstands 
it ;  and  within  a  few  weeks  of  the  day 
on  which  I  first  noticed  the  remarkable 
change  of  Mrs.  Hood's  manner  to  her 
husband  the  signs  of  suffering  and  illness 
in  her  face  grew  distressing. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE    SECOND    MRS.    HOOD 

ONE  day  that  I  had  been  at  luncheon 
with  Hood  and  his  wife  at  Berkeley 
Square  he  had  gone  out  early  and  left  us 
alone  together.  She  sat  silent  for  awhile, 
and  answered  only  in  monosyllables  when 
I  spoke  to  her.  Suddenly,  as  if  she  had  at 
length  made  up  her  mind  to  a  course  that 
she  had  long  been  debating,  she  asked : 

"  I  suppose  you  knew  George's  first 
wife?" 

In  my  utter  surprise  at  the  question 
thus  thrown  at  me  unawares,  I  could  do 
nothing  more  than  murmur  a  helpless 
"Yes." 

"  What  was  she  like  ?     Who  was  she  ? 
Why  have    I  never  been  told   of  her  ? " 
She    asked    the    questions    quickly,    ex- 
citedly, almost  hysterically. 
229 


230         Ube  Second  flDrs.  tbooD 

I  got  up  from  my  chair  and  walked  a 
pace  or  two  about  the  room  to  regain  my 
own  calmness  before  answering. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  I  said  then,  "  that 
your  husband  is  the  person  to  whom  you 
ought  to  address  these  questions  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  replied,  "  no,  I  do  not,"— 
and  now  there  was  a  firmness  and  decision 
in  her  voice  that  had  their  source  in 
anger.  "  These  are  not  questions  that  I 
ought  to  have  to  address  to  my  husband 
or  to  anybody.  They  are  questions  that 
never  ought  to  have  arisen  to  be  asked. 
The  answers  to  such  questions  ought  to 
have  been  given  me  long  ago,  before  I 
was  married,  unasked." 

Her  indictment  was  most  painfully 
true.  I  had  no  word  of  valid  defence 
to  oppose  to  it.  "And  since,"  she  said, 
"  my  husband  has  not  thought  it  well  to 
tell  me  these  things,  I  am  asking  you, 
who  are  his  friend  and  apparently  in  all 
his  secrets,  to  tell  me.  Or  am  I  to  sup- 
pose that  a  conspiracy  of  silence  has 
been  formed  against  me — that  I  am  to 
receive  no  enlightenment  as  to  these  facts 


Second  flDrs.  DooD          231 


which,  after  all,  do  somewhat  concern 
me?" 

"  There  is  no  conspiracy  of  silence, 
certainly  not,"  I  said,  in  a  manner  that  I 
felt  to  be  weak  and  hesitating.  "  But  I 
do  not  really  know  how  much  I  ought  to 
say  —  how  much  I  am  at  liberty  to  say." 

She  shrugged  her  graceful  shoulders 
disdainfully.  "  It  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  such  a  position  as  that  is  very  in- 
accurately described  as  a  conspiracy  of 
silence." 

"  Let  me  speak,  Mrs.  Hood.  Let  me 
explain,"  I  pleaded.  "  There  is  no  con- 
spiracy —  there  is  no  compact  between 
George  and  myself  that  I  shall  keep 
silence  about  what  I  know  of  his  private 
affairs.  He  never  has  demanded  any 
promise  of  secrecy  from  me  about  them. 
And  yet  I  know  quite  well  that  he 
understands  that  I  look  upon  that  know- 
ledge as  confidential.  Therefore,  I  do  not 
feel  myself  wholly  at  liberty,  without  his 
leave,  to  speak  to  you  on  these  subjects. 

"  At  the  same  time  I  have  this  feeling 
no  less  strongly  —  in  fact,  far  more  strongly 


232          Ube  Second  flDrs,  1boo& 

— that  you  ought  to  be  informed  about  it 
all ;  that  it  would  have  been  far  better 
had  you  been  informed  about  it  long  ago, 
before  you  married.  I  even  went  so  far  as 
to  recommend  this  course  to  George,  and 
I  understood  from  him  that  he  intended 
to  follow  it ;  but  it  does  not  seem  that  he 
did  so." 

"  Understood  from  him  that  he  in- 
tended to  follow  it ;  but  did  not  do  so  ! " 
she  repeated.  "  How  well  I  know  that 
impression  which  he  is  so  skilful  in  im- 
parting, and  which  leads  to  absolutely 
nothing  !  Your  ideals  of  honor  and  con- 
fidence in  friendship  are  very  lofty,"  she 
continued  with  irony.  "  Will  they  per- 
mit you  at  least  to  tell  me  this — why 
George's  father  objected  so  much  to  his 
marriage  ?  Was  she  not  a  lady  ?  " 

"  I  think  that  was  the  father's  objec- 
tion," I  said,  after  a  moment's  thought. 

"But  even  so,  what  reason  was  there 
for  all  this  mystery  ?  Why  should  I  not 
have  been  told  ?  " 

"  Mrs.  Hood,"  I  said  earnestly,  "  I 
think  it  would  have  been  better,  infinitely 


TTbe  Second  flDrs.  Iboofc          233 

better,  if  there  had  not  been  any  mystery 
at  all  —  if  you  had  been  told  every- 
thing." 

"  Then  why  will  you  not  tell  me  every- 
thing now — at  least,"  she  said,  correcting 
herself,  "  as  much  as  you  know  ?  How 
much  you  know,  how  much  I  know,  how 
much  there  may  be  behind,  I  suppose  no 
one  knows  except  my  poor  husband  him- 
self." 

That  last  phrase  struck  my  attention — 
"  my  poor  husband."  Much  cause  as  she 
might  have,  and  actually  had  no  doubt  to 
blame  her  husband,  there  remained  in  her 
heart  some  of  that  "  pity  which  is  akin  to 
love  "  if  she  could  use  the  epithet  "  poor." 
I  found  myself  debating  this  in  the  re- 
cesses of  my  mind,  even  while  my  more 
superficial  mental  activities  were  engrossed 
with  the  question  that  she  had  put  to  me 
—why  should  I  not  tell  her  everything,  so 
far  at  least  as  I  knew  it  ?  And  I  believed 
that  I  knew  all  there  was  to  tell.  After 
all,  I  was  bound  to  no  secrecy  ;  I  dis- 
approved of  the  entire  course  of  action  of 
my  friend,  and  especially  of  that  part  of  it 


234          Ube  Secon£>  /IDrs.  1boo& 

which  consisted  in  making  a  mystery  to 
his  wife  of  his  past  life.  He  had  even 
acquiesced  in  my  suggestion  that  it  would 
be  far  better  for  his  wife  to  be  informed  of 
everything.  I  could  therefore  reasonably 
argue  that  I  was  only  acting  as  he  had 
formally  approved,  in  being  the  medium 
for  his  wife's  information.  Still  I  tempor- 
ized. The  idea  of  betraying  a  confidence 
tacitly  reposed  in  one  is  not  an  idea  that 
becomes  pleasant  by  virtue  of  a  few  cold 
arguments  decking  it  with  a  show  of  justi- 
fication. 

"  Ask  me  questions,"  I  said  at  length  ; 
"  I  will  answer  them  if  I  can — that  is,  if  I 
feel  that  I  can." 

I  detected,  and  without  surprise,  a 
scornful  curl  of  the  lady's  finely  cut  lip  at 
the  weakness  that  permitted  me  this  com- 
promise with  my  conscience. 

"  Please  don't  do  violence  to  your  senti- 
ments," she  said,  in  a  tone  that  made  me 
feel  as  Joseph  Surface  should  have  felt 
if  he  had  any  sense  of  shame  in  him. 
"  What  was  her  name  ?  " 

"  I    don't    know,"    I    said,    "  what   her 


Seconfc  /IDrs.  1boo&          235 


surname  was.  Her  Christian  name  is 
Gracia  —  she  is  a  Spaniard." 

"  Is  !     Was,  you  mean." 

"  Is,  still  is,"  I  persisted. 

"You  mean  "  —she  looked  at  me  with 
eyes  dilating  with  horrified  astonishment 
—  "  that  she  is  alive  still  !  " 

I  nodded. 

"  Then  my  husband  -  !  "  she  gasped. 
"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  I  am  not 
married  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no,"  I  said,  even  in  the  midst 
of  this  scene  of  staccato  emotion  scarcely 
able  to  refrain  from  smiling  at  the  idea 
suggested.  "  George  is  not  quite  as  bad 
as  that." 

"  You  mean  there  was  a  divorce  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  there  was  never  a  mar- 
riage —  a  legal  marriage." 

"  Oh  !  "  She  sat  silent  a  while,  think- 
ing, I  could  fancy,  with  relief,  on  the 
changed  view-point  of  the  situation  to 
which  this  intelligence  brought  her.  Then 
she  said,  looking  at  me  keenly,  "  Is  that 
true  ?  " 

Clearly  it  was  no  game  of  compliments 


236          ZIbe  Second  flDrs.  1booD 

and  fine  phrases  that  we  were  playing. 
The  words  came  as  the  heart  prompted 
them. 

"  Yes,"  I  said  simply,  "  it  is  quite  true." 

"  Forgive  my  asking  such  a  question," 
she  said,  realizing  that  it  was  not  quite  with- 
in the  social  conventions.  "  I  had  reasons, 
I  have  reasons,  for  thinking  that  there  was 
a  marriage." 

"  And  I  have  George's  word,"  I  said, 
"  for  knowing  that  there  was  not." 

"  For  knowing,"  she  repeated,  with  an 
emphasis  that  indicated  clearly  a  possi- 
bility that  "  knowledge  "  might  have 
sounder  foundation. 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  After  all, 
this  was  a  view  that  had  not  before  oc- 
curred to  me — that  George  might  have 
deceived  me  and  his  father,  too,  all  along, 
in  this  matter.  We  were  dealing  with  a 
tangled  skein,  and  my  faith  in  my  friend 
was  not  strong. 

"  Where  is  she  now,  this  woman  ?  " 

I  was  able  to  answer  truly  that  I  had 
not  the  most  vague  idea.  Then  came  the 
feminine  question  that  was  inevitable — I 


Ube  Second  flDrs.  Tboofc          237 

think  an  Englishwoman  would  have  asked 
it  sooner — "  what  age  is  she  ?  Is  she 
good-looking  ?  " 

In  form  these  were  two  questions,  in 
fact,  they  were  one.  I  was  on  the  point  of 
answering  unguardedly  that  she  was  by  far 
the  most  beautiful  woman  I  had  ever  seen. 
Luckily  I  reflected  in  time  that  any  such 
appreciation  could  only  aggravate  the  situ- 
ation. 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  she  is  certainly  good- 
looking." 

"  And  young  ?  " 

"  And  young." 

She  paused  for  a  moment  before  her  next 
question,  and  both  from  her  hesitation  and 
from  her  tone  when  she  did  ask  it,  I  knew 
that  the  asking  cost  her  an  effort. 

"  Do  you  know  whether  George  has 
seen  her  since  our  marriage  ?  " 

"  I  am  quite  certain  that  he  has  not,"  I 
said. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  answered.  "  I  know 
by  your  tone  that  you  are  glad  to  be  able 
to  tell  me  that." 

She  asked  me  then  whether  there  were 


238         TTbe  Secont)  /iDrs.  1boo& 

any  children,  and  I  told  her  about  the  boy. 
From  that  she  led  me  to  give  a  full  ac- 
count of  the  extraordinary  gypsy  life,  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  gypsy  mar- 
riage had  taken  place,  and  so  on.  My 
conscience  reproached  me  at  times,  in 
course  of  the  recital,  with  violating 
George's  confidence  ;  but,  after  all,  I  had, 
as  I  told  myself  again,  never  promised 
secrecy  ;  the  whole  story  was  one  that  I 
had  strongly  advised  should  be  disclosed 
to  the  wife  before  marriage,  and  I  had 
understood  George  to  acquiesce  in  that 
counsel.  Both  for  him  and  for  her  I 
deemed  it  far  better  that  the  truth  should 
be  told  her,  and  with  these  reflections  I 
stifled  as  best  I  might  any  reproaches  that 
my  conscience  suggested. 

When  I  had  told  Mrs.  Hood  all  that  I 
had  to  say,  she  was  silent  for  a  long  while. 
Then  she  said,  "  After  all,  it  is  no  more 
than  many  other  men  have  done  before 
marriage,  is  it  ?  " 

"No  more,  no  worse,  certainly,"  I  re- 
plied. 

"  But  I  do  wish  that  he  had  told  it  to 


Ube  Second  flDrs.  Tboofc          239 

me  all  himself.  I  would  have  forgiven 
him." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  wish  he  had." 

She  reflected  again,  silently,  before  her 
next  words,  which  surprised  me  when 
they  came.  "  I  have  humiliated  myself 
sufficiently,  have  I  not,  in  asking  these 
questions  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  that  you  have  humili- 
ated yourself,"  I  said.  "  I  am  very  sorry 
for  you." 

"  That  is  practically  the  same  thing — I 
have  appealed  to  your  pity.  Well,  it  has 
not  failed  me,  and  I  am  very  grateful. 
Oh,  I  am  very  grateful,"  she  repeated  ear- 
nestly. "  I  cannot  tell  you  how  grateful 
I  am,  nor  how  much  I  want  a  friend.  I 
am  here,  a  woman  in  a  strange  country. 
I  do  not  make  friends  very  easily.  I 
could  not  ask  you  to  be  my  friend  if  I 
did  not  know  how  much  of  a  friend  you 
were  to  George.  You  have  told  me  much 
about  the  husband ;  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  something  now  about  the  wife,  if  you 
will  have  the  kind  patience  to  listen  to  it." 

Certainly   I   would  listen  ;    but  as  for 


240         zrbe  Second  flDrs.  1boo& 

friends,  American  though  she  was,  I  could 
imagine  no  Englishwoman  having  more. 
Her  acquaintance  was  enormous,  and  one 
of  the  charms  of  the  small  dinners  at  the 
Hoods'  was  the  uncertainty  who  or  of 
what  class  might  be  one's  fellow  guests. 
The  party  might  be  political  —  cabinet 
ministers  and  their  wives.  It  might  be 
artistic  —  painters  or  sculptors  without 
their  wives ;  or,  if  the  artists  were  femi- 
nine, without  husbands  ;  for  art  and  matri- 
mony are  not  good  friends.  It  might  be 
musical.  It  might  even  be  smart,  with  dec- 
orative people  whose  heads  were  empty 
but  their  chatter  glib  in  its  own  small 
circle,  and  their  laughter  ready  to  respond 
to  very  little  wit.  The  only  thing  that 
they  seldom  were  was  financial,  for  the 
hosts  were  too  well  off  and  too  unlike 
their  neighbors  to  want  to  speculate,  or 
to  give  dinners  in  exchange  for  those 
Stock-Exchange  tips  which  generally  are 
so  cheap  to  those  who  give  them  and  so 
expensive  to  those  who  take  them.  And 
often  there  was  a  most  admired  and 
surprising  confusion  of  these  various  ele- 


Second  flDrs.  t>oo&         241 


ments.  This,  if  it  can  be  done  with  suc- 
cess, is  the  very  triumph  of  the  dinner 
giver,  but  it  requires  an  extraordinary 
social  gift  on  the  part  either  of  host  or 
hostess  to  bring  successful  harmony  out 
of  the  elements  of  such  discord.  Mrs. 
Hood  had  these  extraordinary  qualities  as 
hostess.  George  in  large  measure  had 
them  as  host,  and  thus  their  parties  were 
a  joy. 

But  all  this  does  not  make  friends,  as 
Mrs.  Hood  said  truly  when  I  suggested 
to  her  that  she,  of  all  women  in  London, 
had  not  the  right  to  talk  of  herself  as 
friendless,  though  it  means  an  enormous 
acquaintance.  It  was  quite  possible  withal 
that  she  might  be,  as  she  said,  in  lack  of 
a  friend,  and  there  was  a  distinct  reason 
that  she  should  make  me  her  confidant  in 
the  fact  that  so  much  had  been  confided 
to  me  already.  With  me  she  had  but  to 
take  up  the  parable  with  the  beginning 
of  her  married  life.  There  was  little  in 
George  Hood's  previous  life  that  was 
unknown  to  me  —  or  so  I  ventured  to  sup- 
pose. But  it  was  of  the  wife,  not  of  the 


242          Zlbe  Second  /IDrs. 


husband,  ostensibly,  that  Mrs.  Hood  had 
to  tell  me. 

"  I  don't  think,"  she  said,  in  the  slightly 
nasal  tone  that  seems  to  give  an  air  of 
added  reflection  and  value  to  what  an 
American  says,  "that  an  American  girl" 
(she  pronounced  it  "  Amurrican,"  but  it  is 
tiresome  to  insist  on  these  accentuations) 
"begins  married  life  with  quite  the  same 
ideas  as  an  English  girl.  She  has  illu- 
sions, of  course,  but  they  are  not  precisely 
the  same  illusions.  She  does  not  imagine 
that  she  is  marrying  an  angel  and  going 
to  Paradise  straight  away,  but  she  does 
imagine  that  she  is  marrying  something 
that  she  is  going  to  make  do  what  she 
wants  it  to  do.  An  English  girl  does  not 
begin  with  that  idea.  She  begins  with 
the  contrary  notion  —  that  she  ought  to 
do  what  her  husband  wants  her  to  do. 
Whether  she  intends  to  do  it,  and  whether 
she  does  it,  are  quite  another  story.  The 
illusion  I  began  with  was  that  I  was  going 
to  make  George  do  what  I  wanted  him 
to  do. 

"  The   worst   sign    in    him  was,  and  I 


Second  /IDrs.  Tfooofc          243 


ought  to  have  recognized  it  from  the  be- 
ginning, even  before  we  were  married, 
that  he  never  fought.  He  always  seemed 
to  be  giving  in,  to  be  taking  it  lying  down, 
whatever  I  had  to  give  him.  And  yet,  if 
I  had  only  realized  it,  he  never  did  what 
I  wanted  of  him  after  all,  not  in  the 
least  particular.  Or  if  he  did,  he  just  did 
enough  of  it  to  keep  me  quiet,  so  long  as 
it  did  n't  matter  to  him  ;  but  directly  it 
began  to  matter,  from  his  point  of  view,  I 
never  moved  him  an  inch.  Loved  me  ! 
Well,  I  suppose  he  did,  all  the  time  ;  but 
made  a  fool  of  me  all  the  time,  for  all 
that,  and  made  the  bigger  fool  of  me  just 
because  he  let  me  think  all  the  time  that 
I  was  making  a  fool  of  him.  If  I  had 
recognized  strength  of  character  in  him, 
in  doing  all  this,  I  could  have  borne  it 
better  ;  but  George's  is  not  a  strong  char- 
acter. His  very  method  of  getting  his 
own  way  showed  that.  But  I  must  say 
that  I  do  admire  George.  I  think  he  is 
the  cleverest  man  I  ever  met." 

"  I  quite  think  so  too,"  I  said. 

"  And  the  most  useless  ;  the  man  who 


244         tlbe  Second  flDrs. 

will  have  done  least  good  in  his  genera- 
tion, who  will  just  go  out  of  life  without 
any  one  noticing,  and  will  not  have  made 
a  cent's  worth  of  difference,  at  least  not 
the  right  sort  of  difference,  to  the  world 
by  his  life." 

"  I  'm  afraid  that  would  be  just  about 
the  truest  epitaph  that  could  be  put  over 
most  of  us,"  I  said. 

"Yes,  but  not  above  most  that  are  as 
clever  as  George,"  she  replied  with  con- 
viction. "  There  are  not  so  very  many 
that  are  as  clever." 

"You  told  me  you  were  going  to  tell 
me  about  the  wife,  not  the  husband,"  I 
said. 

"  And  so  I  am,"  she  answered.  "  I  am 
telling  you  what  a  fool  the  wife  was,  in 
what  she  thought  of  the  husband  and  of 
what  she  was  going  to  make  of  the  hus- 
band. Perhaps  you  '11  think  that  I  did  n't 
love  him — that  I  don't  love  him — because 
I  can  talk  so.  You  'd  be  very  wrong  if 
you  did  think  that.  I  believe  there  was  a 
time  when  I  did  n't  love  him,  and  I  '11  tell 
you  why.  I  failed — I  failed  with  George 


ZCbe  SeconD  /IDrs.  TbooD          245 

— failed  to  make  what  I  wanted  out  of 
him.  I  don't  know  what  I  wanted  ex- 
actly. I  wanted  something  celebrated— 
a  cabinet  minister,  or  premier,  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind.  Well,  of  course, 
George  was  not  cut  out  to  go  on  those 
lines — I  ought  to  have  known  that  from 
the  start ;  but  I  was  a  fool,  as  I  say.  So 
George  continued  to  go  his  own  way,  and 
when  I  found  that,  I  got  annoyed  with 
him,  and  I  dare  say  I  let  him  see  it,  and 
then  he  sought  the  friendship  of  other 
women — that  is  what  I  could  not  stand, 
but  I  see  now  it  was  all  my  own  fault  that 
drove  him  to  it,  my  misunderstanding  of 
him  and  my  thinking  that  I  could  make  him 
do  what  I  wanted,  and  then  being  vexed 
when  I  found  I  could  n't,  and  letting  him 
see  that  I  was  vexed ;  and  after  that  of 
course,  when  he  was  disappointed  in  me, 
he  tried  to  find  the  ideal  woman  who 
would  n't  disappoint  him.  I  don't  mean 
to  say,  you  know,  that  he  went  out  de- 
liberately woman  hunting  or  ideal  hunt- 
ing ;  I  don't  mean  that,  but  he  '  went 
a-roaming'  in  a  dissatisfied  way,  trying 


246          Ube  Second  /IDrs. 

for  comfort,  not  knowing  in  the  least  what 
comfort  it  was  he  wanted.  Oh,  it  must 
be  funny  being  a  man  !  Perhaps  there  is 
one  thing,  though,  that  seems  more  funny 
to  you — being  a  woman." 

"  It  must  be  funny  being  a  woman,  no 
doubt,"  I  assented. 

"  So  it  is,  but  it  is  not  always  amusing 
— not  to  oneself  at  least.  I  think  you 
would  not  believe,  perhaps  you  could  not, 
being  a  man,  how  I  used  to  torment  my- 
self when  I  saw  George  wanting  the  com- 
panionship of  other  women." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  about  that,"  I  said. 
"  I  don't  think  that  jealousy  has  any  par- 
ticular sex." 

"  And  I  'm  sure  it  has,"  she  maintained. 
"It  is  far  worse  for  a  woman.  I  was 
mad,  I  think,  with  jealousy — I  suppose 
jealousy  is  the  right  name  for  it — and  I 
think  I  was  not  well ;  for  a  long  time 
I  was  bothered  with  sick  fancies,  and 
thought  George  was  in  love  with  every 
woman  he  spoke  to.  I  'm  sure  it  sent  up 
my  temperature  of  nights,  thinking  of  it 
as  I  lay  awake.  And  then  I  came  into 


Ube  Secorto  flDrs.  1booo          247 

George's  room  one  day  as  he  was  sitting 
at  his  bureau,  and  as  I  came  in  he  jostled 
a  letter  or  something  away  in  his  hand 
and  put  it  into  a  drawer  and  locked 
the  drawer.  That  made  me  mad.  I 
was  as  certain  as  if  I  had  seen  and  read 
the  letter  that  it  was  a  letter  which 
he  did  not  wish  to  show  me,  from  some 
woman.  As  if  I  should  have  cared  to 
read  it ! " 

"Yes,"  I  said.     "As  if!" 

She  laughed.  "  Well,  of  course  that 's 
nonsense ;  that 's  only  a  way  of  saying. 
Of  course  I  was  dying  to  know  what  was 
in  that  letter  really  ;  but,  equally  of  course, 
I  took  no  notice  at  the  time.  I  did  not 
say  anything  to  George.  I  pretended  not 
to  have  seen  him  shovelling  the  letter 
away.  Well,  do  you  know,  that  happened 
twice.  Twice  it  happened  that  I  came 
into  the  room  and  found  him  reading  a 
letter  which  he  shovelled  away  into  the 
drawer  as  soon  as  I  came  in.  When  he 
did  it  the  second  time,  it  seemed  more 
than  twice  as  bad  as  when  he  did  it  the 
first.  I  think  it  was  then  that  I  began  to 


248          Ube  Second  flDrs.  1boo& 

hate  George.  I  've  left  off  doing  that 
now,  you  know." 

I  nodded. 

"  I  said,"  she  went  on,  "  that  I  had  hu- 
miliated myself  before  you.  You  did  not 
seem  to  understand  when  I  said  it.  I  ex- 
pect you  understand  now.  At  all  events 
you  will  when  I  tell  you  what  came  next. 
You  see  the  situation — there  was  I,  twice 
I  had  seen  my  husband  conceal  this  letter, 
and  I  suspected  all  sorts  of  things,  and 
one  day,  when  George  had  gone  out,  I 
came  into  his  room  and  there  were  his  keys 
lying  on  the  open  part  of  the  bureau. 
You  see  now  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you, 
that  is  so  humiliating.  Yes — there  was 
the  key  and  there  was  the  drawer — I  knew 
which  the  key  was  that  opened  it — and 
within  was  (or  in  all  probability  was)  the 
letter  that  I  was  not  meant  to  see.  What 
I  ought  to  have  done  was  to  go  out  of  the 
room,  out  of  the  house,  go  to  a  theatre,  to 
the  dentist,  to  any  amusement  or  pain  or 
emotion  that  would  take  my  thoughts 
away.  What  I  did  was  this — I  sat  down 
in  the  room  with  my  back  to  the  bureau. 


ttbe  Seconfc  /IDrs.  Tboofc          249 

I  would  not  look  at  it.  But  I  saw  it  all  the 
same,  though  my  back  was  turned  to  it ; 
and  not  only  saw  the  bureau  but  actually 
seemed  to  see  through  the  wood  of  the 
drawer  and  read  the  writing  that  I  imag- 
ined written  on  the  letter  inside  the  drawer. 
Once  I  did  go  out  of  the  room  and  slam- 
med the  door  hard  in  the  hope  that  it 
would  bring  a  servant  or  somebody  that 
would  distract  my  thoughts  and  give  me 
something  else  in  my  mind's  eye  besides 
that  ugly  square  bureau  and  that  glitter- 
ing bunch  of  keys  that  seemed  to  have 
some  hypnotic  suggestion  and  magnetism 
in  their  gleams.  But  no  one  came.  At 
length  I  went  back  on  tip-toe,  praying  now 
that  nobody  might  come  to  interrupt  me, 
although  only  a  few  minutes  before  I  had 
been  hoping  that  somebody  would  come. 
I  did  not  hesitate  any  longer.  I  went 
straight  up  to  the  bureau,  took  the  keys 
and  opened  the  drawer.  The  paper  was 
there  that  I  was  looking  for — I  knew  the 
look  of  it  well.  It  was  not  at  all  of  the 
nature  that  I  had  suspected  it  of  being — 
but  it  gave  me  proof  (I  imagined  it  at  least 


250         Ube  Seconfc  /IDrs.  1booO 

to  be  proof)  of  what  I  had  never  for  a 
moment  suspected  before,  of  George's 
previous  marriage. 

"  It  's  a  pretty  story  is  n't  it  ?  "  she  said 
ironically,  as  I  made  no  comment  when 
she  paused. 

"  It  is  a  very  human  story  at  all  events, 
in  some  of  its  aspects." 

"  And  so — she  is  still  alive  ?  " 

"Yes,"  I  said,  knowing  that  the  "she" 
could  refer  but  to  one  person.  "  She  is 
still  alive  ?  " 

Mrs.  Hood  did  not  speak  for  a  moment, 
and  when  the  next  words  came  they  were 
a  little  enigmatic.  She  said  : 

"Is  that  the  reason,  I  wonder?  Poor 
George ! " 

"  The  reason  of  what  ?  "  I  asked,  though 
she  had  seemed  to  be  speaking  rather  to 
herself  than  to  me. 

She  did  not  answer  at  once.  It  seemed 
as  if  she  were  debating  some  question 
in  her  mind.  Presently  it  appeared 
what  the  question  at  debate  was,  and 
the  answer.  She  had  been  deliberating 
whether  she  should  make  further  con- 


ZTbe  Second  flDrs.  1boo&          251 

fidences  to  me,  and  at  length  had  decided 
to  do  so. 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  she  said.  "  You  will  see 
then  why  I  am  so  greatly  in  want  of  a 
friend.  I  have  told  you  something  of 
what  I  found  in  that  drawer — I  seem  to 
have  been  punished  more  than  enough,  do 
I  not,  for  my  wickedness  in  opening  it  ? 
I  found  something  else  in  it — an  address 
that  aroused  my  suspicions.  It  was  the 
address  of  a  house  in  Soho.  After  that, 
do  you  know  what  I  did  ?  " 

"  Not  precisely,"  I  replied,  though  I  had 
a  shrewd  idea  that  I  knew. 

"  I  can  hardly  bear  to  tell,"  she  said 
shamefacedly;  "but  since youknowsomuch 
that  is  bad  about  me,  you  may  as  well 
know  the  worst.  I  was  still  half  crazed, 
I  think,  with  my  suspicions  as  to  what 
George  did  in  the  hours  he  was  away  from 
me — hours  for  which  he  could  not,  or 
would  not,  give  an  account.  I  had  him 
watched  by  a  detective  to  that  house  of 
which  I  told  you  I  found  the  address,  and 
do  you  know  what  I  discovered  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  my  dear  lady,  I  do  know. 


252         zibe  Second  flDrs.  TfoooD 

And  I  cannot  tell  you  how  deeply  sorry  I 
am  for  you — and  for  him." 

"  You  know ! "  she  exclaimed  in  great 
surprise.  "  What  is  there  that  you  do  not 
know  about  this  poor  husband  of  mine  ? 
Tell  me  this,"  she  said  almost  fiercely, 
looking  at  me  as  if  she  would  drag  the 
truth,  against  my  will  if  necessary,  from 
me.  "  Do  you  know — have  you  been  de- 
ceiving me  all  this  time — do  you  know  all 
that  I  found,  all  that  I  have  not  told  you, 
in  that  paper  that  was  in  the  drawer  ?  " 

I  assured  her  so  earnestly  that  I  had  not 
the  most  remote  conception  of  what  might 
be  conveyed  or  concealed  in  the  paper  she 
spoke  of  that  I  think  my  manner,  perhaps 
more  than  the  words,  carried  conviction  to 
her,  and  she  began  with  a  renewed  trust  in 
me,  that  had  been  momentarily  shaken,  to 
ask  me  the  details  of  my  knowledge  of  her 
husband's  use  of  the  drug,  how  long  he  had 
taken  to  the  habit,  how  he  had  spoken 
when  I  urged  him  to  refrain,  and  so  forth. 
She  spoke  with  such  earnest  solicitude 
that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  think  that 
her  love  for  him  was  dead,  nor  did  she 


ZTbe  Secon&  flDrs.  TbooO          253 

show  any  of  that  loathing  that  might  be 
almost  natural  towards  one  who  was  the 
victim  of  such  a  degrading  weakness,  al- 
though she  fully  seemed  to  realize  the 
horror  of  it. 

"  You  have  said  nothing  to  him  your- 
self about  it,  have  you  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Nothing  as  yet,"  she  answered.  Then, 
after  a  moment's  pause,  "  I  hardly  feel  as 
if  I  can." 

"  You  will,  Mrs.  Hood,"  I  said,  as  firmly 
as  I  could,  and  as  gently.  "  It  is  not  for 
me,  of  course,  to  point  out  to  you  the  line 
in  which  your  duty  lies,  but  I  am  quite 
confident  that  you  will.  I  am  also  confi- 
dent that  no  one  else's  speaking  can  have 
anything  like  equal  effect." 

She  took  a  turn  or  two  in  the  room,  ab- 
stractedly adjusting  the  combs  that  were 
in  her  bright  hair.  The  final  pat  was  a 
firmly  decisive  one.  She  had  made  up 
her  mind. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  will  speak  to  him." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

REMORSE 

I  WAS  not  able  to  convince  myself  to  my 
satisfaction  of  the  probable  effect  of  the 
news  I  had  been  able  to  give  her  on  Mrs. 
Hood's  relations  with  her  husband.  In 
some  measure  I  had  put  the  matter  in  a 
more  favorable  light  than  that  in  which 
she  had  regarded  it  since  her  discovery  of 
the  incriminating  paper.  I  had  assured 
her  that  this  was,  in  effect,  no  previous 
marriage  of  which  she  had  been  kept  in 
ignorance,  but  was  really  rather  one  of 
those  pre-nuptial  and  unlicensed  liaisons 
which  nearly  every  man  who  has  found 
himself  with  money  in  a  large  city  has 
formed  in  his  youth,  and  of  which  he  hesi- 
tates, perhaps  out  of  a  fine  feeling  of 
respect  for  her  modesty,  to  say  anything 
to  his  wife.  From  this  point  of  view  the 
254 


1Remor.se  255 

concealment  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a 
tribute  to  her  more  refined  nature  than  as 
an  offence  against  honor  and  candor.  On 
the  other  hand  I  had  been  obliged  to  tell 
her  that,  though  this  liaison  belonged  to  a 
part  of  his  life  that  her  husband  had  wholly 
left  behind  him,  still  he  was  not  so  en- 
tirely severed  from  it  as  she  had  imagined 
by  the  great  gulf  of  the  death  of  the 
former  object  of  his  love.  She  lived  still, 
still  depended  on  and  received  his  bounty. 
This  reflection  was  one  that  might  in  the 
case  of  a  wife  of  a  jealous  temperament, 
as  I  knew  Mrs.  Hood  to  be,  make  the 
situation  more  aggravated  than  before. 
From  the  way  in  which  she  received  what 
I  had  told  I  augured  that  I  had  not  done 
unwisely,  in  the  interests  of  the  mutual 
relations  of  husband  and  wife,  to  make 
this  virtual  breach  of  confidence  of  my 
friend's  secret,  but  that  augury  was  based 
only  on  Mrs.  Hood's  first  acceptance. 
Further  consideration  might  very  conceiv- 
ably have  changed  her  view.  It  is  true 
that  she  had  spoken  in  the  most  affection- 
ate way  of  her  husband  as  we  discussed 


256  TRemorse 

the  possibility  of  aiding  him  to  break  from 
the  fetters  of  the  fatal  habit  in  which  he 
was  fast  bound  ;  but  all  that  was  immedi- 
ately after  I  had  told  her  of  the  true  in- 
terpretation to  be  placed  on  the  discovery 
that  she  had  made.  The  course  of  that 
discussion  did  not  give  her  any  leisure  for 
the  arrangement  of  her  thoughts,  and  I 
was  in  secret  dread  as  to  the  outcome 
of  the  inevitable  process  of  her  mental 
brooding  over  what  she  had  heard.  It 
was  therefore  a  purest  delight  and  relief 
to  me,  on  my  next  meeting  with  Hood, 
when  he  began  speaking  in  the  lazy  drawl 
that  was  his  normal  manner : 

"  The  world  is  full  of  surprises,  and  to- 
day for  a  wonder  I  have  had  a  pleasant 
one.  For  the  most  part  I  find  them  the 
reverse  of  pleasant.  My  wife  has  begun 
to  treat  me  again  like  an  old  friend,  not 
merely  as  if  we  had  been  introduced  the 
day  before  yesterday." 

Of  course  I  knew  precisely  what  he 
meant,  but,  equally  of  course,  I  could  not 
quite  say  so.  Well  as  I  knew  him,  it 
seemed  to  be  demanded  of  me  that  I 


IRemorse  257 

should  affect  to  have  perceived  nothing 
left  to  be  desired  in  his  wife's  manner  with 
him  at  any  time. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  I  asked. 

Of  course,  with  his  more  than  feminine 
quickness  of  intuition,  he  appreciated  ex- 
actly the  train  of  thought  that  had  led  me 
to  the  remark.  He  laughed,  and  then 
was  good  enough  to  say  : 

"  If  I  knew  what  a  gentleman  was,  ex- 
actly, I  should  say  that  you  were  always 
one.  My  wife  has  been  to  me,"  he  went 
on,  "  with  the  air  of  one  making  a  confes- 
sion, to  confide  in  me  what  I  knew  before, 
but  of  course  I  did  not  tell  her  so,  that 
she  had  employed  one  of  those  lights  of 
the  earth  called  private  detectives  and  had 
discovered  who  the  mistress  was  that  had 
some  claims  upon  my  time."  So  far  he 
had  spoken  with  the  cynicism  characteris- 
tic of  him.  He  went  on  in  a  much  more 
serious  tone  that  proved  him  to  be  really 
touched  :  "  I  cannot  tell  you  how  kind  and 
tender  she  was  to  me,  praying  me  for  her 
sake  as  well  as  my  own  to  pull  myself  to- 
gether and  leave  this  blessed  stuff  for  the 


258  IRemorse 

devil  to  smoke  in  hell,  as  I  am  very  cer- 
tain he  does  not,  for  then  it  would  be  hell 
no  longer.  And  I  have  promised  her,  my 
friend,  and  I  will  renew  my  promise  to 
you  too  " — he  was  speaking  very  solemnly 
now,  as  if  he  felt  that  he  was  making  some 
kind  of  sacred  vow,  although  I  knew  only 
too  well  how  little  there  was  that  he  held 
sacred — "  that  I  will  give  up  this  blessed 
and  accursed  drug.  I  would  swear  it  if  I 
knew  by  what  to  swear.  But  we  will  leave 
it  so  without  vain  swearing.  I  will  do  my 
very  best,  both  for  her  sake  and  for  mine, 
as  she  said." 

"  And  if  you  resolve  your  mind  like  that 
you  will  have  strength.  I  am  confident 
you  will." 

"  Thank  you,  my  friend,"  he  said.  "  You 
are  very  good  to  me,  both  you  and  she. 
What,  I  wonder,"  he  went  on,  speaking 
softly,  as  if  to  himself,  "  can  be  the  reason 
of  her  changing  to  me  so  suddenly,  and 
so  completely — so  delightfully." 

I  hesitated  whether  to  tell  him  that  I 
believed  I  knew  the  reason  of  the  change, 
but  in  some  measure  this  would  have  been 


TRemorse  259 

to  betray  her  confidence,  and  I  reflected 
that  a  woman  does  not  forgive  you  as 
readily  as  a  man  will  forgive,  your  breach 
of  confidence,  though  it  may  be  that  a 
man  will  be  a  more  faithful  keeper  of  a 
confidence.  And  while  I  hesitated  Hood 
resumed : 

"  Do  I  show  any  signs  of  it  in  my  man- 
ner?" (There  was  no  need  to  indicate 
more  exactly  the  meaning  of  the  "it.") 
"  Do  my  eyes  show  it  ?  Is  my  hand  be- 
ginning to  shake  ?  Do  you  see  signs  of 
my  brain  going  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  no,"  I  said,  "  not  that." 

"  I  have  often  wished  it  would  go. 
Yes,  I  have  wished  to  heaven,  often,  that 
I  might  go  mad.  Then  perhaps  I  might 
have  some  peace  of  mind.  At  present  I 
have  none." 

"  What  is  it  that  troubles  you  so  ? 
Gracia  ?  " 

"Gracia!"  he  said.  "Yes  Gracia!" 
His  voice  seemed  to  linger  and  dwell  on 
the  musical  syllables  of  the  Spanish  name 
as  if  he  found  some  comfort  in  the  sound. 
"  Do  you  not  think  it  natural  that  my  heart 


260  TRemorse 

and  my  conscience  should  be  troubled 
about  Gracia — about  her  and  about  my 
boy  ?  I  have  not  said  much  to  you — not 
even  to  you  who  are  my  best  friend  — 
about  it  all.  What  use,  after  all,  to  try 
to  translate  one's  emotions  into  the  spoken 
word  ?  "  I  might  have  answered  him  that 
I  knew  no  man  who  made  the  attempt 
more  often,  or  on  the  whole  with  more 
success.  "  But  it  is  for  you  to  judge, 
rather,  and  estimate  what  my  feeling 
must  be.  After  all,  I  have  loved  this 
woman.  In  a  way  I  believe  I  love  her 
still — no,  not  love,  but  I  have  the  affec- 
tion of  a  dear  friendship  for  her,  and,  be- 
sides, she  is  the  mother  of  my  boy !  I 
think  of  him,  too,  so  constantly  that  be- 
tween the  two  it  seems  to  me  as  if  my 
whole  mind  were  obsessed  by  them,  and 
I  can  have  no  room  in  it  for  other  thought 
and  other  trouble.  Yet  I  have  so  much 
more.  Has  it  ever  seemed  curious  to  you 
that  I  have  not  been  down  to  see  them— 
Gracia,  I  mean  ?  " 

"Curious,"  I  said,  "not  so  much  that 
you   have   not   been  down   to  see  them 


IRemorse  261 

as  that  you  have  not  seemed  to  want 
to." 

"  Have  not  seemed  to  want  to,"  he  re- 
peated. "  Yes,  I  suppose  it  must  have 
seemed  to  you  like  that.  It  only  shows 
how  little  one  can  appreciate  the  impres- 
sion one  makes  on  one's  friends,  even  on 
those  who  are  the  most  understanding. 
As  for  not  wanting  to  go  down  and  see 
them,"  he  said,  "  it  is  a  want,  at  times  it 
has  become  almost  a  necessity,  that  has 
beset  me  daily,  almost  hourly.  It  has  been 
by  the  strongest  effort  only  that  I  have 
kept  myself  back  and  dissuaded  myself 
from  taking  train  to  wherever  they  might 
be,  and  seeing  them  for  myself.  You  tell 
me  of  the  boy  that  he  grows  bigger, 
rounder,  browner.  His  body  is  well.  I 
am  doing  nothing  for  his  mind  and  for  his 
soul.  What  am  I  to  do?  How  can  I 
do  anything  ?  I  am  in  the  net  of  my  own 
weaving.  Can  you  understand  the  motives 
that  have  kept  me  from  going  to  see 
them?" 

"  I  think  I  can,  in  part,"  I  said. 

"  The  motives  are  two,  and  both  are 


262  TRemorse 

women.  Gracia  is  the  one,  Olga  the  other. 
As  regards  Olga,  there  would  be  neither 
infidtlitt  de  coeur  nor  de  corps,  as  the 
French  say,  in  my  paying  a  visit  to  Gracia 
and  the  boy  ;  but  it  would  be  better,  more 
discreet — I  feel  that  I  owe  it  to  her,  as  part 
of  a  very  large  debt  due  from  me  to  her — 
not  to.  As  for  Gracia,  you  can  under- 
stand, I  think,  how  I  shrink  from  seeing 
her,  how  I  hardly  could  bear  to  see  her, 
feeling  that  I  have  made  her  suffer  deeply, 
out  of  her  love  for  me,  and  yet  how  I  long 
to  see  her !  I  expect  you  can  understand. 
It  is  so  hard  not  to  see  her — to  see  them 
both — and  yet  to  see  her  I  sometimes 
think  would  be  harder  still.  It  would  be 
more  than  I  could  bear." 

"She  would  have  no  reproaches  for  you," 
I  said. 

"  No,  no,"  he  said  bitterly,  "  she  would 
have  no  reproaches  ;  and  that  would  make 
my  self-reproach  so  much  the  sharper. 
That,  too,  you  can  understand.  But  it  is 
amazing  to  me  that  you  have  not  perceived 
all  this  without  my  telling  you.  When 
one  feels  something  with  a  great  intensity, 


IRemorse  263 

one  has  a  natural  disposition  to  think  that 
it  must  reveal  itself  to  a  friend's  sympathy. 
It  only  shows  how  easily  one  is  mistaken. 
It  is  even  satisfactory  in  some  degree  to 
find  that  one  is  less  transparent  than  one 
had  supposed.  I  have  had  wonderful  les- 
sons in  my  life  from  two  women,  and  I 
have  not  deserved  either  of  them." 

"There  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt 
of  that,"  I  said,  with  a  candor  I  knew  he 
would  not  resent. 

"  After  all,  about  Gracia — a  man  must 
be  true  to  his  own  self,  he  must  do  the  best 
for  his  own  nature  ;  that  is  the  most  sacred 
trust  that  has  been  given  him ;  he  must 
follow  the  dictates  of  his  own  'daemon.' 
Am  I  not  right  ?  " 

"  Whether  you  are  right  I  do  not  know," 
I  said.  "  I  know  at  least  that  in  saying 
this  you  are  consistent  with  what  you  have 
always  preached.  But  have  you  been  as 
consistent  in  practising  what  you  have 
preached,  and  if  you  have  been  consistent 
in  the  practice,  are  you,  in  your  own  life,  a 
striking  testimony  to  its  excellence  ?  After 
what  you  have  just  told  me,  that  it  has 


264  TRemorse 

brought  you  to  this  stage  that  you  wish 
you  could  go  mad,  that  so  perhaps  you 
might  win  peace  of  mind,  can  you  say  that 
your  system  is  a  success  ?  " 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  he  said.  "  I  am  a 
fair  argument  against  my  principles.  But 
I  tell  you  it  is  not  by  reason  of  my  system, 
and  not  so  much  by  reason  of  my  incon- 
sistency, but  of  my  cowardice,  my  lack  of 
courage  and  decision  in  carrying  it  out, 
that  I  am  such  a  fine  argument  against  it." 

"  I  don't  quite  follow,"  I  said. 

"  No  ?  Well,  I  will  expound.  It  is 
marvellously  simple.  In  the  first  place  I 
was  consistent  enough ;  I  followed  the  dic- 
tates of  my  'daemon,'  as  I  believed,  with 
Gracia.  I  do  not  reproach  myself  with 
that,  I  do  not  reproach  myself  that  I  did 
not  marry  her,  but  what  I  do  reproach 
myself  with  is  that,  not  marrying  in  any 
legal  sense,  I  yet  weakly  allowed  myself  to 
go  through  a  form  with  her  which  she  un- 
doubtedly believed  to  be  a  legal  marriage. 
I  ought  to  have  taken  my  courage  in  two 
hands  and  said  to  her  boldly  :  '  This  is  no 
binding  marriage  that  we  are  making ;  we 


IRemorse  265 

are  not  bound  to  each  other  in  any  legal 
sense.'  Had  I  done  that,  I  might  have 
been  free  of  remorse  now — I  do  not  know. 

"  Again,  it  was  merely  in  the  obstinacy 
of  a  radically  weak  nature  that  I  allowed 
my  father  to  believe  for  so  many  years 
that  I  really  was  married  to  Gracia.  In 
that  I  did  him  a  fatal  wrong,  a  wrong  that 
without  doubt  embittered  his  life  and 
hastened  his  death." 

"  You  are  not  sparing  yourself,"  I  said, 
said. 

He  took  no  notice  of  this.  "  Once 
again,  when  I  married  Olga,  my  weakness 
and  indecision  prevented  my  taking  the 
right  course  which  you — and  my  '  daemon,' 
as  I  am  pleased  to  call  him,  too — urged 
upon  me.  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  I 
decided  to  marry  Olga.  In  my  circum- 
stances— such  as  I  had  created  them — the 
fact  that  I  had  acted  wrongly  in  creating 
them  did  not  affect  the  question — I  be- 
lieve I  was  right  then  in  making  that  mar- 
riage. If  you  knew  the  ideals  with  which 
I  entered  upon  it,  I  believe  that  even  you 
too  might  think  I  was  right  in  doing  so. 


266  TRemorse 

Of  my  ideals  of  our  intimate  life  together 
I  need  not  speak.  Of  my  ideals  of  our 
social  life  I  may  say  that  I  imagined  it 
would  be  entirely  different  from  that 
which  we  see  familiarly — the  husband  sit- 
ting in  a  silence,  blighted  by  the  presence 
of  the  wife,  or  the  still  more  blighting 
spectacle  of  the  husband  eloquent  while 
the  wife  sits  admiringly  listening  to  his 
every  word.  I  had  imagined  a  brilliant 
give  and  take  of  suggestion  and  response. 
Well — the  reality  you  have  seen.  But, 
whether  I  acted  rightly  or  wrongly  in 
marrying,  this  at  least  is  certain,  that  I 
acted  wholly  wrongly  in  not  telling  my 
wife  at  the  outset  all  about  my  previous 
relations  with  Gracia.  Some  day  she  is 
bound  to  find  them  out.  Maybe  she  has 
found  them  out  already.  What  do  I 
know  ?  Sometimes  there  seems  to  be 
so  little  real  sympathy  between  us,  that  it 
is  impossible  for  me  to  know  what  passes 
in  her  thoughts." 

I  hesitated  a  moment,  as  I  had  done  be- 
fore, and  had  I  hesitated  longer  I  might 
have  answered  differently — or,  again,  not 


TCemorse  267 

at  all — but  this  time  I  told  myself  that  at 
least  one  cause  of  misunderstanding  be- 
tween these  two  I  would  sweep  away  at 
all  costs,  and  exclaimed  recklessly  :  "  You 
may  reassure  yourself  on  that  point.  She 
knows  it  all  already." 

"  Ah,"  he  said  quietly,  "  you  told  her  !  " 
"  No,"  I  replied.  "  In  the  first  in- 
stance, she  found  it  out  herself.  Later  I 
told  her — when  she  questioned  me — the 
truth.  It  was  better  she  should  know  the 
real  truth  than  the  truth  as  she  believed  it 
to  be.  It  was  the  wrong  interpretation 
that  she  put  on  what  she  discovered  that 
built  up  such  a  barrier  between  you. 
When  she  knew  the  real  truth  her  love 
for  you  broke  down  the  barrier  in  a 
moment." 

"  She  found  out  for  herself — how  ?  " 
The  question  put  me  into  deep  waters. 
To  answer  it  I  had  to  give  away  much  of 
the  confidential  avowal  made  to  me  by  the 
wife.  I  seemed  in  a  position  between  the 
two  in  which  I  was  constantly  giving  to 
the  one  the  confidences  of  the  other.  The 
reckless  mood  was  upon  me  still,  and  I 


268  IRemorse 

had  the  conviction  that  my  betrayal  was 
better  than  the  lack  of  understanding 
which  the  lack  of  mutual  confidence  be- 
tween them  had  produced.  Even  with 
this  conviction  I  hardly  know  how  I  should 
have  answered  but  for  a  glance  at  my 
friend.  His  pale,  worn  face  had  gone 
more  pallid,  as  white  as  a  sheet  of  paper. 
He  repeated  : 

"  How  did  she  find  out  ?  " 

"  She  found  some  letter  or  document, 
or  something  which  virtually  told  her.  It 
told  her  wrong,  however.  It  told  her  you 
had  been  married  ;  and  she  imagined  it 
referred  to  a  former  marriage,  which  you 
had  kept  a  secret  from  her,  with  a  woman 
who  was  dead." 

Preoccupied  with  the  task  of  saying  just 
enough,  but  not  too  much,  I  finished  my 
sentence  before  I  looked  directly  at  my 
friend.  To  my  horror  I  then  saw  him  lying 
back  in  his  chair,  as  pale  as  death,  in  a 
state  of  physical  collapse.  He  was  fumb- 
ling with  his  left  hand  at  his  waistcoat 
pocket,  and  let  fall  a  tiny  bottle  which 
rolled  without  breaking  to  the  floor.  I 


IRemorse  269 

picked  it  up  and  read  on  the  label,  "  To 
be  taken  in  case  of  an  attack."  I  pulled 
the  cork  out.  "  For  you  to  take  now  ?  "  I 
asked.  He  was  too  far  gone  to  reply  ex- 
cept by  a  very  slight  motion  of  his  hand 
and  a  droop  of  the  lids  over  the  eyes, 
which  I  accepted  as  affirmative  signs.  He 
aided  me  feebly  in  putting  the  tiny  bottle 
to  his  mouth,  and  drank  off  its  contents. 
Then  he  lay  back  with  closed  eyes.  His 
breath,  which  he  had  fetched  in  feeble 
gasps,  came  more  evenly.  Presently  the 
tinge  of  color  that  passed  with  him  now 
as  the  hue  of  health  came  back  to  his 
cheek  ;  his  face  lost  its  absolutely  death- 
like pallor.  His  eyes  opened,  he  passed 
his  hand  over  his  forehead  as  if  he  were 
removing  an  oppressive  weight.  Then  he 
smiled  at  me. 

"  That  is  better,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice. 

As  soon  as  I  saw  him  in  a  fair  way 
of  recovery  I  left  him,  at  his  own  request, 
by  himself,  under  promise  that  I  would 
call  to  see  him  on  the  following  morning, 
when  he  would  be  more  master  of  himself, 
and  able  to  talk  to  me.  He  had  a  hand-bell 


270  IRemorse 

within  reach  to  summon  a  servant  if  any 
repetition  of  the  heart  attack  occurred,  but 
he  assured  me  that  its  recurrence  was  not 
the  least  likely. 

The  next  day,  when  I  called,  he  seemed 
quite  himself  again,  asserted  manfully  that 
he  was  perfectly  well,  and  hardly  would 
answer  my  inquiries  in  his  impatience  to 
resume  the  conversation  which  the  attack 
had  interrupted. 

"  You  know  what  the  document  was, 
I  suppose,  which  my  wife  found — which 
told  her  so  much,  and  so  much  that  was 
untrue  ?  " 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  I  do  not  know." 

"  She  is  a  wonderful  woman,"  he  said 
with  admiration.  "  I  should  not  say  that 
she  was  altogether  a  sympathetic  woman," 
he  went  on  with  that  passion  for  analysis 
which  would  never  leave  him,  even  on  his 
death-bed.  "  It  is  hard  for  a  brilliant  wo- 
man to  be  really  sympathetic.  The  one 
quality  implies  an  interest  in  the  words 
and  acts  of  another  person  that  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  other.  The  brilliant  wo- 
man has  no  attention  to  spare :  she  is  an 


IRemorse  271 

egoist.  But  my  wife  is  a  wonderful 
woman,  a  woman  of  wonderful  goodness 
of  heart,  even  if  she  is  not  truly  sympa- 
thetic. You  will  see  it  when  I  tell  you 
what  the  document  was  that  she  found." 

"  What  was  it  ?  " 

"  It  was  my  father's  will  :  the  will  he 
made  when  we  were  on  bad  terms :  the 
will  that  disinherited  me  :  the  will  that  I 
found  on  the  table  at  home  when  I  went 
to  him  and  found  him  tearing  up  papers 
and  dying  in  the  act." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  but — I  do  not  under- 
stand." 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  You  do  not  under- 
stand. You  will  in  a  moment,  when  I 
have  explained  to  you — will  understand, 
at  least,  as  much  as  I  understand  myself. 
There  are  some  things  that  I  find  too 
difficult  for  my  understanding.  When  I 
went  to  my  father,  as  I  think  I  narrated 
to  you,  I  found  him  in  his  study  tear- 
ing up  papers.  He  had  a  drawer,  taken 
bodily  from  a  cabinet,  on  the  table  beside 
him.  Obviously  he  was  glancing  over 
a  heap  of  papers  before  tearing  them 


272  IRemorse 

up.  Some  had  already  been  torn — the 
waste-paper  basket  at  his  side  was  half 
filled  with  the  fragments.  Amongst  the 
papers,  even  under  his  very  hand,  was  the 
will  that  he  had  made  under  the  impres- 
sion— in  which  I  did  so  wrongly  to  let 
him  remain — that  I  was  legally  married 
to  Gracia,  the  will  of  which  the  main  pur- 
port and  purpose  was  my  disinheriting. 
Do  you  remember  that  you  once  asked 
me  whether  this  was  among  the  papers 
already  torn  ?  " 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  remember  perfectly." 

"  And  what  did  I  answer  ?  " 

"  Nothing.  You  seemed  as  if  " — I  cor- 
rected myself — "  you  acted  as  if  you  had 
not  heard." 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  said,  "  it  was 
among  those  papers  that  were  not  yet 
torn." 

He  paused,  as  if  he  expected  that  I 
should  make  some  comment,  but  I  found 
none  that  seemed  to  be  the  suitable  one 
to  offer. 

"It  is  you  that  say  nothing  now,"  he 
remarked. 


TRemorse  273 

"  I  do  not  quite  know  what  I  ought  to 
say,"  I  replied. 

"  I  do,"  he  replied.  "  What  you  ought 
to  say — what  at  least  seems  the  straight- 
forward thing  to  say — is  that  I  am  a  d — d 
blackguard ;  for  of  course  it  is  evident 
enough  to  you  that  the  provisions  of  that 
will  which  disinherited  me  never  were  acted 
on,  and  the  inference  is  inevitable  that  I 
suppressed  that  will.  I  did.  What  I  did 
was  this — when  the  death-like  collapse  at- 
tacked my  father  I  hurried  to  his  side, 
but  even  before  doing  so  I  had  noted 
the  nature  of  the  short  document  lying  at 
his  hand  uppermost  on  the  table,  as  if 
it  were  the  very  next  paper  in  its  turn  for 
the  tearing.  The  language  of  the  law 
is  not  concise,  but  the  clerkly  writing 
is  legible.  Without  a  doubt  of  the  gen- 
eral tenor  of  the  document,  I  conveyed  it 
to  my  pocket  when  I  returned  to  put  the 
papers  in  order  so  soon  as  all  possible 
immediate  aid  had  been  given  to  my  poor 
father.  He  never  regained  consciousness, 
as  you  are  aware.  A  more  careful  read- 
ing of  the  document  only  confirmed  my 

18 


274  IRemorse 

first  impressions.  The  rest  you  know. 
I  suppressed  the  will.  I  acted  as  you 
say,  like  a  blackguard." 

"  I  did  not  say  so,"  I  observed. 

"  As  you  think,  then,  I  will  say,"  he 
replied,  "  and  as  all  the  world  would  think. 
And  yet,"  he  continued,  crossing  his  legs 
and  settling  himself  in  his  chair  with  a 
kind  of  luxurious  enjoyment  of  the  situa- 
tion, "  let  us  look  into  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  and  examine  them  if  we  can 
without  any  prejudice.  Let  us  dismiss 
myself,  and  the  incident  of  my  own  bene- 
fit derived  from  the  suppression  of  the 
will  (it  is  only  an  incident  in  the  ethical 
aspect)  altogether.  Let  us  suppose  that 
I,  having  no  interest  in  the  will,  one  way 
or  the  other,  came  into  the  room  as  I  did 
and  found  my  father  in  the  act  of  tearing 
up  papers,  and  amongst  them  this  will 
which  I  knew,  not  only  from  the  fact  of 
its  being  amongst  the  other  documents 
that  he  was  in  process  of  destroying,  but 
also  from  what  he  had  said  to  me  on 
many  previous  occasions,  that  it  was  his 
settled  wish  and  intention  to  destroy  , 


IRemorse  275 

suppose  that  I  knew  for  certain  that  all 
his  wishes  and  intentions  would  be  frus- 
trated if  this  document  were  to  be  promul- 
gated as  his  last  will  and  testament ;  what, 
in  those  circumstances,  would  it  be  my 
duty  to  do?" 

The  case  assumed  a  singular  aspect 
under  his  handling. 

"  If  any  circumstances  could  justify  one 
in  interfering  with  the  course  of  law  and 
justice,"  I  began  with  a  feeble  sententious- 
ness,  "  then  perhaps — 

He  interrupted  me  abruptly.  "  Inter- 
fering with  the  course  of  law — yes.  Inter- 
fering with  the  course  of  justice  —  no. 
Say  rather  interfering  with  the  course  of 
injustice.  Behind  the  law  you  must  look 
to  the  intention  in  which  the  law  is  framed. 
The  law  respecting  a  man's  will  is  framed 
with  the  intention  that  his  wishes  shall  be 
carried  out.  You  will  perceive  that  in 
this  instance  those  wishes  would  be  directly 
frustrated  by  allowing  the  law  to  take  its 
course." 

"  That  is  so,  certainly,  but  yet " 

The   sense    of   sanctity   with   which  a 


276  IRemorse 

testament  is  invested  in  the  mind  of  every 
rightly  educated  Englishman  was  too 
strong  in  me  to  allow  me  to  give  his  argu- 
ment its  just  weight,  without  prejudice. 

"  I  believe,"  I  said  with  slow  reluctance, 
"  that  under  the  circumstances  you  may 
possibly  have  been  justified  in— 

"In  what?"  he  asked,  as  I  paused, 
scarcely  liking  to  put  my  thoughts  into 
words. 

"  In  destroying  the  will,"  I  said.  "  I  pre- 
sume that  is  what  you  did." 

"Unfortunately,"  he  replied,  "that  is 
what  I  did  not  do.  I  did  not  destroy 
the  will,  but  I  concealed  it.  I  kept  it. 
Ah ! "  he  exclaimed  bitterly,  "  if  you 
knew  me  as  you  ought  by  this  time  to 
know  me,  as  I  know  myself,  you  would 
know  that  it  was  not  in  my  nature  boldly 
to  destroy  the  will.  I  have  kept  it,  I  have 
concealed  it.  From  time  to  time  I  have 
taken  it  out  and  looked  at  it,  though  its 
phrases  are  seared  into  my  brain.  I  have 
been  on  the  point  of  burning  it.  Again  I 
have  been  on  the  point  of  producing  it, 
of  showing  it  to  you,  to  my  wife,  to  all  the 


TRemorse  277 

world,  of  confessing  myself  a  thief,  a  felon. 
Ah,  if  you  knew  how  the  trouble  of  it  all 
and  the  remorse  has  preyed  upon  me,  you 
would  not  wonder  that  I  had  recourse  to 
that  blessed  drug.  That  is  the  chief 
source  of  all  the  trouble  of  mind  of  which 
I  said  to  you  a  little  while  ago  I  could  not 
tell  you,  but  of  which  the  confession  seems 
to  have  been  wrung  from  me  by  the  force 
of  circumstances." 

"  And  that  is  the  document  which  your 
wife  has  seen  and  which  told  her — that 
you  were  married  ? " 

He  nodded.  "  And  that  is  why  I  told 
you,"  he  said,  "  that  my  wife  was  a  wonder- 
ful woman.  Just  pause  for  a  second  and 
picture  to  yourself  what  this  meant  to  her. 
She  found  this  paper — I  suppose  I  left 
the  drawer  open,  I  do  not  remember — at 
all  events  she  found  it,  and,  having  found 
it,  what  was  it  that  it  told  her  ?  It  told 
her  I  had  been  previously  married — that, 
at  least,  was  how  she  was  bound  to  under- 
stand it — and  naturally  there  would  come 
to  her,  at  that,  a  cruel  sense  that  she 
had  been  deceived,  kept  in  the  dark. 


278  IRemorse 

That  was  bad  enough.  No  doubt  at  that 
she  felt  her  heart  turned  more  than  ever 
against  me.  But  the  will  said  this,  that  in 
consequence  of  my  marriage  I  was  disin- 
herited—  that  was  the  English  of  it, 
stripped  of  its  law  jargon.  So  what  did 
that  practically  mean  to  her,  seeing  that 
she  knew  very  well  that  by  the  will  that 
had  been  proved,  a  will  of  much  earlier 
date,  I  was  far  from  disinherited  ?  It 
simply  meant  this,  that  I  was  concealing 
this  will,  that  I  was  a  thief,  a  felon,  a 
criminal  of  the  worst  and  lowest  type — of 
course  she  knew  nothing  of  my  reasons 
for  the  concealment.  Do  you  follow  all 
that  ? " 

"  Yes,"  I  said. 

"  Then  what  does  this  woman  do,  when 
she  has  discovered  this  ?  Remember  that 
the  very  paper  itself  seemed  to  give  her 
evidence  that  she  had  been  unfairly  dealt 
with,  and  remember,  too,  that  there  was 
already  some  misunderstanding  between 
us.  Did  she  denounce  me  ?  No.  Did 
she  treat  me  with  scorn  and  contempt  ? 
No.  On  the  contrary,  her  manner  under- 


IRemorse  279 

went  the  most  striking  change  towards 
me.  She  lost  all  her  petulance  and  small 
fault-finding  of  manner,  she  never  up- 
braided me  for  big  shortcomings  or  for 
small,  she  was  always  courteous,  always  dis- 
tantly polite.  I  did  not  understand  it 
then,  but  I  understand  it  now,  and  it  was 
a  manner  that  had  in  it  all  that  was  most 
dignified.  It  had  more  of  consideration 
and  friendship  than  I  had  any  right  to  ex- 
pect. And  then,  then,"  he  repeated  with 
energy,  "  even  with  all  that  knowledge  of 
me,  as  soon  as  ever  she  discovered  the 
real  truth — out  of  your  mouth,  my  friend  ; 
and  I  can  never  thank  you  enough  for  tell- 
ing it  to  her — then  she  became  tender  and 
kind  to  me,  doing  all  in  her  power,  and, 
thank  God,  she  has  helped  me  very  effec- 
tually, to  save  me  from  that  dear,  delight- 
ful, accursed  drug.  I  seem  to  see  now,  by 
the  light  that  is  dawning  on  me,  that  my 
wife  has  a  true  woman's  heart ;  and,  do 
you  know,"  he  concluded  earnestly,  "  there 
was  a  time  when  I  was  disposed  to  doubt 
it?" 

"  I  suspected  something  of  your  small 


280  iRemorse 

misunderstandings,"  I  said,  "  and  was  so 
grieved  that  I  could  do  nothing  to  help 
you." 

"  You  have  helped  me,"  he  answered. 
"  You  have  helped  both  of  us  in  clearing 
away  much  of  these  misunderstandings. 
Ah,  if  I  had  had  but  the  courage,  before 
my  life  came  to  this  ! " 

"  Now  that  you  know  what  my  trouble 
has  been,"  he  continued,  "  then  if  you  also 
knew,  as  I  trust  you  never  will,  the  relief, 
the  respite,  and  the  rest  given  by  this 
blessed  drug,  you  would  not  wonder  at  me 
— I  think  you  would  hardly  blame  me. 
As  for  the  trouble,  that  you  can  perhaps 
imagine,  after  what  I  have  told  you  ;  but 
as  for  the  rest  and  the  respite,  I  do  not 
know — how  can  I  explain  ?  Listen — you 
remember  the  time  when  I  made  you  lie 
on  your  back,  down  by  the  caravans  in 
that  blessed  time,  long  ago,  in  the  glades 
of  Ashdown  Forest,  and  made  you  look 
up  through  the  blue  at  the  fleecy  clouds 
sailing  overhead — you  remember  that  sen- 
sation ?  " 

I  nodded. 


IRemorse  281 

"  There  is  another  that  Nature  can  give 
you,"  he  continued;  "there  are  not  many 
spots  that  can  give  it ;  it  is  not  to  be  en- 
joyed everywhere,  like  the  hypnotism  of 
the  blue  depths  of  the  sky.  It  requires  for 
its  accessories  first  the  sea,  and  then  a 
promontory  running  well  out  into  the  sea, 
on  which  you  may  sit  or  lie  and  watch  the 
waves  racing  from  you — not  at  you,  as 
their  similar  aspect  is.  There,  as  you  rest, 
you  see  the  smooth  convexities  of  their 
backs  hurrying,  hurrying  away  from  you  ; 
and  as  you  sit  it  seems  rather  as  if  the  sea 
was  the  thing  at  rest  and  you  were  mov- 
ing, smoothly,  irresistibly,  without  effort, 
out  to  the  open  ocean.  Something — that 
is  to  say,  all  the  power  of  perception  and 
speculation — seems  to  be  drawn  out  of 
your  brain,  so  as  to  leave  it  in  a  state  of 
most  blissful,  restful  trance,  ready  for  the 
reception  of  the  most  beautiful  visions 
which  the  unchecked  imagination  may 
suggest  to  it.  Well,  that,  or  something 
of  that  kind,  is  the  blessed  feeling  that 
this  drug  gives  you.  It  is  comparable 
with  none  of  the  ordinary  sensations  of 


282  IRemorse 

life,  for  it  is  different  from  them  all  and 
more  delightful  than  the  best  of  them. 
That  is  the  one  world  that  I  now  live  in ; 
the  other  is  such  a  world  of  mental  tor- 
ture as  I  don't  suppose  many  other  men 
have  a  conception  of." 

"  It  is  sad,  is  it  not?"  I  said,  willing  to 
take  hold  of  the  latter  part  of  his  speech, 
which  I  could  understand,  rather  than  the 
former,  which  was  of  a  vague,  dim  world 
into  which  I  followed  with  difficulty.  "  It 
is  sad  that  you,  of  all  men,  should  have 
come  to  such  a  phase  of  life,  after  so  much 
sacrifice,  ideals  so  high.  You  have  made 
faithful  sacrifice,  as  you  believed,  to  your 
ideal  of  living,  according  to  your  '  daemon,' 
of  being  true  to  your  own  nature,  to  its 
promptings,  to  yourself  rather  than  to  the 
conventions — and  it  is  to  this  end  ! " 

"  Yes,  to  this  end ;  but  it  is  to  my  in- 
decisions that  I  owe  it  all,  rather  than  to 
the  ideals  I  have  followed.  My  sacrifice, 
if  you  please  to  call  it  so,  or  my  following 
has  not  been  faithful — that  has  been  the 
great  fault.  After  all,  however,  I  am  not 
going  to  admit  to  you  that  this  is  the  end. 


TRemorse  283 

Thanks  to  Olga  and  to  you  I  am  making 
a  good  fight,  really  I  do  hope  a  winning 
fight,  but  it  is  a  hard  one.  The  sky  is 
clearing  of  its  clouds,  though.  There  is, 
I  think,  only  one  cloud  of  serious  mis- 
understanding left — that  about  the  will.  I 
cannot  let  Olga  remain  in  her  misconcep- 
tion as  to  the  true  state  of  that  case." 

"  You  mean ?  "  I  asked  not  quite 

comprehending. 

"  I  mean  that  at  present,  having  read 
that  will  and  having  no  means  of  knowing 
the  tangle  of  motives  that  led  in  the  end 
to  my  suppressing  it,  she  must  naturally 
look  on  me  even  as  a  bigger  rascal  than  I 
am.  I  appreciate  what  all  that  implies,  of 
course.  She  is  a  wonderful  woman.  It  is 
wonderful  that  thinking  as  she  does  of  me, 
she  can  still  be  so  good  to  me.  It  is  like 
the  love  of  a  dog,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that 
does  not  ask  whether  its  master  is  the  best 
or  worst  of  men,  but  merely  loves  him ; 
and  the  more,  the  worse  he  treats  it." 

"  It  will  be  hard  for  you,"  I  said. 
"  Would  you  like  me  to  tell  her?" 

"  No,"  he  replied  firmly,   and  nothing 


284  IRemorse 

could  have  shown  me  more  clearly  that  at 
last  he  had  a  definite  purpose  to  end  the 
misunderstandings.  "  It  is  very  good  of 
you,  but  I  will  do  this  for  myself.  We 
will  play  the  game  of  cross  purposes  no 
longer." 

"  She  is  not  at  home,  is  she,"  I  said— 
"  your  wife  ?  " 

"No  she  is  away  motoring  somewhere 
— I  do  not  know  where  she  has  gone.  I 
do  not  question  her  goings.  She  returns 
to-morrow,  I  think." 

I  was  about  to  bid  him  good-bye  when 
he  called  me  back. 

"After  all,"  he  said,  "I  will  ask  your 
help  once  again,  so  far  as  this,  as  to  ask 
you  to  be  present  when  I  tell  my  wife 
about  the  will.  The  truth  is  that  I  never 
now  can  trust  this  foolish  heart  of  mine. 
Of  course  there  is  nothing  to  be  agita- 
ted about,  but  if  my  pulse  should  get  beat- 
ing a  trifle  quickly  there  is  no  saying  at 
all  what  my  heart  would  do.  It  is  very 
foolish." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

EXPLANATIONS 

THREE  days  later,  in  answer  to  a  sum- 
mons, I  called  again  at  the  house  in  Berke- 
ley Square  to  make  a  third  at  the  suggested 
interview  between  Hood  and  his  wife.  I 
was  a  little  upset  to  find  myself  ushered 
into  a  room  where  Mrs.  Hood  was,  alone. 
I  feared  that  she  might  ask  me  all  sorts  of 
questions  as  to  how  much  I  had  told 
George  of  what  she  had  confided  to  me, 
and  blamed  George  in  my  heart  for  his  in- 
discretion in  thus  leaving  me  to  the  mercies 
of  his  wife's  curiosity.  I  need  have  felt 
no  such  fear.  Mrs.  Hood  was  far  too 
eager  to  tell  me  her  own  news  to  waste 
any  time  at  all  in  hearing  mine,  and  I  soon 
guessed  that  she  had  contrived  that  we 
should  have  a  few  minutes  alone  together 
to  give  her  the  chance  of  telling  it. 
285 


286  Explanations 

"  I  have  been  down  in  the  West," 
she  said,  "  in  the  car,  and  I  have  seen 
her." 

"  Her  ?  Whom  ?  "  I  asked,  but  I  felt 
that  I  knew  the  answer. 

"  That  woman,  the  gypsy — Mrs.  Hood, 
as  she  calls  herself."  The  words  sounded 
harsh,  but  were  said  without  the  least  ran- 
cour. "  Yes,"  she  went  on,  "  I  have  seen 
her  and  I  can  pardon  most  freely  both  him 
and  her.  Or  rather,  I  feel  that  there  was 
nothing  ever  that  needed  pardon.  She 
must  have  been — there  is  no  question  of 
it — one  of  the  most  beautiful  women — in 
her  style — in  the  world ;  I  never  saw  a 
face  to  equal  it  in  the  beauty  of  feature ; 
and  the  coloring  must  have  been  brilliant. 
But  to  ask  a  woman  who  believes  that  a 
man  and  a  woman  come  into  sympathy 
with  each  other  by  something  better  and 
higher  than  the  mere  bodily  passion — to 
ask  me,  who  believe  that  firmly,  to  be 
jealous  of  such  a  woman  as  that  is  to  sug- 
gest an  absurdity.  Women  have  been 
jealous,  I  believe,  of  their  husbands'  love 
of  a  dog  or  a  horse.  I  could  not  be — it 


Explanations  287 

does  not  strike  me  as  possible.  And  the 
love  of  and  for  such  a  woman  as  that  is 
more  canine  than  human.  She  could  not 
speak  to  him,  she  has  no  words  to  say,  no 
thoughts  to  utter  that  could  appeal  to  the 
best  that  is  in  George's  nature.  I  not  only 
feel  no  jealousy  that  he  gave  some  of  his 
lower  passion  to  that  poor  beautiful  thing 
once — I  even  feel  that  if  he  were  to  give 
her  that  now  I  should  be  far  less  jealous 
than  if  I  saw  him,  as  I  actually  have  seen 
him,  engrossed,  mentally  and  spiritually, 
in  accord  and  communication  with  a 
woman  of  intellect.  Then  he  might  in- 
deed be  taking  from  me  something  of  what 
is  best  in  him  that  is  due  to  me.  As  for 
the  other — bah  ! " 

"  How  did  you  find  her  ?"  I  asked. 

"  It  is  not  difficult,"  she  said,  "  in  a  car. 
I  knew  from  you  the  line  of  country  I 
should  find  her  in — down  in  the  West— 
Blackmore's  country,  very  nearly  as  far 
down  as  Kingsley's  country — the  Maid  of 
Sker's  country  to  be  exact.  That  was  ex- 
act enough.  I  soon  got  on  track  of  the 
van,  and  once  you  get  on  track  of  a  van, 


288  Explanations 

and  you  in  a  motor,  the  hunt  is  not  a  very 
long  one." 

"  Did  you  tell  her  who  you  were  ?  " 
"  I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  "  that  you  should 
have  so  poor  an  opinion  of  my  sense. 
What  I  did  was  this — when  we  saw  the 
van  drawn  up  by  the  roadside  we  went 
past  it  once,  just  to  make  sure  that  it 
agreed  with  the  description.  Then,  when 
we  had  gone  a  mile  or  so  past,  we  turned 
again,  and  I  said  to  the  chauffeur  :  '  We  Ve 
got  to  break  down  just  opposite  that  van 
you  saw  drawn  up  by  the  roadside  close 
here.'  He's  been  with  me  quite  a  while 
and  does  n't  ask  questions.  When  we 
came  abreast  of  that  van  again  we  broke. 
That  was  how  I  got  introduced  to  her.  I 
told  him  (the  chauffeur  I  mean)  that  the 
car  was  to  stay  broke  till  I  came  and  told 
him  it  was  to  be  mended  again,  and  that 
if  he  was  asked  in  the  meantime  the  name 
of  his  employer,  he  was  to  say  any  name 
in  the  world  except  the  true  one.  There 's 
one  thing,  by  the  way,  I  forgot  to  tell  you 
about  her — about  the  woman  I  mean." 
"  Yes,  what  is  that  ?  "  I  asked. 


Explanations  289 

She  lowered  her  voice  to  a  whisper : 
"The  poor  thing's  dying." 

"  What  ? "  I  exclaimed  horrified.  "  Dy- 
ing !  Are  you  sure  ?  " 

"  Sure  ?  Well,  yes,  I  'm  afraid  I  'm  sure 
— as  sure  as  I  can  be.  It  was  a  sad  sight  to 
see  her  face,  a  sad  sight.  I  asked  her  if 
she  was  ill,  and  she  said  '  No '  at  first,  and 
then  she  said  that  she  did  n't  know ;  but 
she  did  really,  I  think.  I  cannot  tell  you 
what 's  the  matter  with  her,  but  I  think 
the  main  thing  is  that  she 's  got  no  wish 
to  live.  That 's  about  as  bad  a  disease  as 
any,  I  expect.  I  got  a  doctor  from  Ex- 
eter to  come  and  see  her.  Of  course  he 
had  to  come  by  accident  too,  the  same  as 
I  did.  He  told  her  he  was  a  doctor  and 
persuaded  her  to  let  him  look  at  her.  He 
said  something  about  phthisis,  a  sort  of 
decline,  and  anaemia  (I  never  saw  a  woman 
who  looked  so  ill  look  less  anaemic)  and  so 
on  ;  but  he  about  said  as  much  as  that  he 
could  n't  understand  it,  only  that  she  was 
very  bad,  probably  dying,  poor  thing,  and 
he  could  do  nothing  for  her." 

"  Is  nothing  being  done  for  her  ?" 


290  Explanations 

"  Nothing.  That  is,  everything  that 
can  be  done.  I  made  him  promise  that 
he  would  go  and  see  her  again,  as  often 
as  ever  he  thought  it  any  use  to  go  and 
see  her,  and  once  a  week  oftener  than 
that,  and  to  report  to  me  here.  Is  there 
any  more  to  be  done  ?  " 

I  shook  my  head  sadly,  wondering — 
wondering  at  the  heart  of  woman  and  its 
mysterious  workings.  I  wondered  less  at 
the  news  that  death  had  its  grasp  on  the 
woman  whom  I  had  known  first  as  George 
Hood's  wife.  If  imminent  death  ever 
were  written  on  the  face  of  a  woman  still 
in  fair  health,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I 
might  have  read  it  as  I  looked  at  Gracia's 
perfect  face  while  we  sat  together  that 
day  before  the  sea  on  the  sand-hills  of 
Braunton. 

"How  is  the  boy?"  I  asked.  "Did 
you  see  the  boy  ?  " 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  "  I  saw  the 
boy,"  she  said.  "  He  is  splendid.  He 
made  me  wish  one  thing  only — you  are 
a  man,  but  still  you  may  guess  what  that 
is." 


Explanations  291 

I  might  have  guessed,  though  I  was 
mere  man,  as  she  said ;  but,  before  I  could 
answer,  the  door  was  opened,  and  George 
Hood  entered  the  room.  He  carried  in 
his  hand  a  long  envelope.  I  thought  that 
his  wife  glanced  at  it  and  started  slightly, 
as  if  with  recognition,  or  suspicion  of 
recognition,  as  she  noticed  it — but  could 
not  be  sure.  I  was  too  greatly  struck  by 
the  look  of  Hood's  face  to  be  able  to  take 
careful  note  of  other  details.  It  was  the 
first  time  for  many  days  that  I  had  seen 
him  in  the  morning,  and  in  a  clear  light, 
and  his  pallor  and  general  look  of  ill- 
health  distressed  me.  The  dark  circles 
below  the  eyes  told  of  a  lack  of  sleep,  in 
spite  of  the  heavy  lids  that  seemed  to 
testify  to  his  continued  use  of  narcotics. 
He  moved  in  a  listless,  dull  manner,  as  if 
he  were  still,  at  the  moment,  under  the 
drug's  influence,  and  wished  me  "  Good 
morning  "  with  an  indifference  that  would 
have  amounted  to  a  discourtesy  in  a  man 
of  normal  health. 

"  I  wished  you  to  be  present,"  he  said, 
"at  an  interview  I  am  obliged  to  have 


292  Explanations 

with  my  wife,  in  order  to  make  to  her  an 
explanation  with  regard  to  a  certain  docu- 
ment which  I  have  reason  to  think  she 
has  read." 

He  spoke  with  the  level  tones  of  a  man 
reciting  a  rehearsed  speech.  Mrs.  Hood 
made  a  movement  as  if  she  would  say 
something  in  reply,  but  no  words  came, 
and  he  continued : 

"  The  document  I  refer  to  is  a  will 
made  by  my  father  at  a  later  date  than 
that  proved  as  his  last  testament."  As 
he  spoke  he  slightly  raised  the  paper  that 
he  held  in  his  hand  to  indicate  that  this 
paper  was  the  document  which  he  was 
mentioning.  "  That  will  was  made  un- 
der a  misapprehension."  He  went  on 
to  describe,  still  in  the  same  even  and 
colorless  tones,  his  father's  belief  that  he 
was  married  to  Gracia,  taking  on  himself 
full  blame  for  allowing  that  misapprehen- 
sion to  continue  so  long.  He  described 
his  reconciliation  with  his  father,  after  ex- 
planation of  the  facts.  Finally,  he  came 
to  the  dramatic  scene  of  his  entry  to  his 
father's  study,  rinding  him  in  the  act  of 


Explanations  293 

tearing  up  papers,  among  which  was  this 
will,  still  intact ;  and  without  a  tremor  or 
change  in  his  voice  related  the  heart- 
failure  that  was  followed,  after  a  period 
of  unconsciousness,  by  death,  while  all 
the  time  the  will  that  he  had  taken  from 
the  table  remained  in  his  own  keeping. 

Thus  he  narrated  the  facts,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  the  more  or  less  casuistical 
train  of  argument  by  which  he  had 
deemed  himself  justified  in  the  suppres- 
sion of  this  that  legally  was  the  true  will. 
While  he  spoke  I  tried  to  discover  the 
impression  that  his  words  were  making, 
but  quite  vainly,  for  Mrs.  Hood  carefully 
kept  her  head  averted.  She  had  her 
elbow  resting  on  the  table  and  her  face 
on  her  hand. 

Presently  the  course  of  Hood's  reading 
was  interrupted  by  the  sound,  low  but 
unmistakable,  of  a  sob  from  his  wife. 
Her  figure  shook  a  little,  and  I  thought 
it  was  time  that  I  should  get  up  and  look 
out  through  the  window  at  Berkeley 
Square.  At  the  next  sound  of  similar 
distress  Hood  stopped  speaking,  and  I 


294  Explanations 

heard  his  wife  say  in  a  broken  voice, 
"  Forgive  me — oh,  forgive  me  ! " 

Hood  answered,  "  Forgive  you  ?  I 
have  nothing  to  forgive ! " 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  have,"  she  insisted,  still 
in  the  same  faltering  tones.  "  If  you  only 
knew,  you  have  so  much  to  forgive." 

"  Well  ?  "  he  said. 

"  When  I  read  that  paper,  the  will — 
I  have  seen  it  before,"  she  began,  but  he 
interrupted  her  with  : 

"Yes,  I  know  you  have  read  it." 

"  You  know  !  How  ?  Well,  it  does  n't 
matter.  I  found  your  keys  lying  around, 
and — I  was  mad  with  jealousy,  I  could  n't 
help  it — I  opened  your  drawer  and  I  found 
this  thing,  and  I  read  it.  Oh,  that  was 
nothing,"  she  said.  "  That  in  itself  might 
be  bad  enough  for  some  women  ;  it  might 
be  bad  enough  for  some  to  have  to  con- 
fess they  had  done  that  and  ask  their 
husbands'  forgiveness  for  it :  but  it  is 
nothing  to  what  I  have  to  ask  you  to 
forgive  me." 

"Well?"  he  said  again. 

"  Well,  it  was  like  this.     So  soon  as  I 


Explanations  295 

read  that  will  and  had  got  the  understand- 
ing of  it  into  my  head — which  I  did  n't  do 
in  a  minute — then,  from  that  moment  right 
away  I  began  to  think  the  very  worst  of 
you.  I  judged  that  you  had  suppressed 
that  will  in  order  to  rob  somebody- 
anybody — everybody,  of  that  money.  I 
judged  you  the  kind  of  man  that  ought 
to  be  in  prison.  Can  you  forgive  me 
ever?" 

"  And  having  judged  me  so,  and  you 
could  not  possibly  judge  me  otherwise  on 
the  evidence,"  he  said  "  what  did  you  do  ? 
All  at  once,  from  having  been  at  cross 
purposes  with  me,  you  became  kind,  con- 
siderate, helping  me  ;  you  became  every- 
thing that  a  man  wants  his  friend  through 
life  to  be.  I  really  do  not  see  how  I  am 
to  forgive  you,  for  I  really  cannot  see  that 
I  have  anything  to  forgive.  Very,  very 
much  the  contrary." 

The  moment  seemed  to  me  to  have  come 
when  I  ought  to  take  a  closer  view  of 
Berkeley  Square  from  outside  the  house. 
So  far  as  I  could  judge  there  was  no  im- 
mediate fear  of  the  crisis  affecting  George 


296  Explanations 

Hood's  heart  beyond  the  strain  which  that 
organ  could  bear  without  my  aid.  I  went 
out  of  the  room,  and,  as  I  believe,  neither 
of  the  others  in  it  noticed  that  I  went,  nor 
were  they  for  the  moment  aware  of  my  ex- 
istence. As  I  opened  the  door  I  could 
not  resist  one  backward  glance.  Hus- 
band and  wife  were  hand  in  hand. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A    FELONY 

IT  was  only  the  next  day  that  I 
found  myself  again  in  the  Berkeley  Square 
house,  in  response  to  a  message  from 
its  hostess.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hood  were 
together  in  his  study  when  I  was  shown 
in. 

"  You  went  away  just  at  the  wrong  time 
yesterday,"  she  said. 

"  Just  at  the  wrong  time,"  Hood  re- 
peated. 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  I  replied  with  hy- 
pocrisy. 

Hood  looked  less  ill  than  on  the  previ- 
ous day.  It  was  obvious  that  he  had  suf- 
fered no  severe  heart  trouble  in  the  short 
interval  since  I  had  seen  him. 

"  George  tells  me,"  Mrs.  Hood  said, 
"  that  you  had  some  little  doubt,  when  he 
297 


298  H  jfelons 

consulted  you,  as  to  what  he  should  have 
done  about  that  will.  Well,  I  have  no 
such  doubt.  Perhaps  it  is  because  I  am  a 
wicked  woman,  perhaps  it  is  because  I 
come  from  a  land  where  we  do  not  re- 
spect the  traditions  quite  as  much  as  you 
do  over  here.  Anyway,  whatever  the  rea- 
son, I  had  not  the  slightest  doubt,  from 
the  moment  that  he  told  me,  in  your  hear- 
ing, all  the  circumstances  connected  with 
that  will,  that  the  most  wrong  and  dis- 
honest thing  he  could  ever  do  would  be  to 
publish  it,  or  have  any  hand  in  publishing 
it,  as  representing  the  last  wishes  of  his 
father.  He  knew  absolutely  that  it  repre- 
sented the  very  opposite  of  what  were  his 
father's  wishes  at  the  end.  He  was  there- 
fore not  only  justified  in  not  making  that 
will  public,  but  he  would  not  have  been 
justified  unless  he  had  taken  every  meas- 
ure to  prevent  its  being  published.  Well 
— he  did  not  take  every  possible  meas- 
ure, and  in  consequence  there  has  been 
trouble." 

"You  mean ?"  I  asked. 

"  I    mean    that  he  ought  to  have  de- 


H  jfelonE  299 

stroyed  it  then  and  there.  Dead  men  and 
burnt  wills  tell  no  tales — that  's  what  I 
mean.  Whether  it  would  have  been  better 
for  him  to  have  told  me  all  about  it  before 
we  were  married  is  another  story — that 
was  for  him  to  judge — and  anyhow,  it  's 
too  late  to  go  back  on  all  that  now.  But 
what  it  is  not  too  late  to  do,  is  to  do  to 
that  blessed  will  what  ought  to  have  been 
done  with  the  fallacious  thing  years  ago, 
and  that  is,  burn  it ;  and  it  's  to  be  present 
at  that  bonfire  that  we  sent  around  for 
you  to-day." 

She  paused  then,  and  looked  at  me. 
George  Hood  looked  at  me  also.  I  un- 
derstood quite  well  the  meaning  of  the 
looks  and  the  motive  of  Mrs.  Hood's 
speech.  She  had  said,  "  We  are  going  to 
burn  the  will."  What  she  meant  was, 
"  We  want  to  know  what  you  think  of 
the  idea  of  burning  the  will,"  and  meant 
also  to  suggest  that  I  should  think  that  it 
ought  to  be  burnt.  They  were  looking  at 
me  to  see  what  I  really  did  think.  What 
did  I  think  ?  The  answer  was  not  very 
plain  in  my  own  mind.  It  was  very  well 


300  H  3felon£ 

for  Mrs.  Hood,  an  American  and  a  woman, 
as  she  had  herself  said  with  just  apprecia- 
tion, to  decide  the  case  on  its  merits.  I, 
who  had  "  eaten  dinners "  and  actually 
been  called  to  the  Bar,  was  bound  in  a 
certain  attenuated  form  of  legal  calf.  I 
hesitated  a  while,  but  in  the  end  the  weight 
of  Mrs.  Hood's  arguments,  which,  after 
all,  coincided  with  the  tendency  of  my 
own  view,  induced  me  to  say  "  Yes  " — not 
to  go  so  far,  which  her  considerate  way  of 
stating  the  case  had  made  unnecessary,  as 
to  say  that  I  approved  of  the  burning  of 
the  will,  but  to  consent,  at  their  joint  re- 
quest, to  witness  the  burning  of  the  will, 
which  had  already  been  determined  on. 
I  compromised  weakly  with  my  convic- 
tions, telling  myself  that  this  was  their 
affair,  not  mine,  whether  right  was  being 
done  or  wrong,  and  so  far  aided  and 
abetted  the  act  of  felony  as  to  give  a  poke 
to  the  fire.  I  do  not  know  what  may 
have  been  the  sensations  of  the  other  and 
more  principal  actors — it  was  Mrs.  Hood's 
bold  small  American  hand  that  actually 
pushed  the  document  into  the  flames — but 


301 

for  my  own  part  I  can  say  that  I  felt  a 
chill  of  conscious  guilt  shiver  down  my 
back  as  the  paper  crackled  and  blazed.  I 
looked  at  George  Hood  to  see  whether 
any  access  of  pulse-beat  was  affecting 
his  heart,  but  he  seemed  perfectly  un- 
moved. 

"  End  of  Act  I.,"  Mrs.  Hood  said  cheer- 
fully, as  the  flames  died  down  and  left 
nothing  but  black  bits  of  paper  where  the 
will  had  been.  "  Now  we  ring  up  the 
curtain  on  Act  II.  The  property  belongs 
to  George  now.  There  is  no  possibility 
of  undoing  that  fact.  If  you  and  I  and 
he  went  into  court  and  told  the  whole 
story  of  the  will,  I  don't  suppose  we  should 
get  any  one  to  believe  it  now,  should  we  ? 
At  all  events,  we  are  not  proposing  to 
do  it.  In  the  meantime  the  property  is 
George's  :  he  is  troubled  to  know  what  to 
do  with  it.  He  is  foolish — feels  a  certain 
unnecessary  delicacy  about  keeping  it.  It 
is  foolish  of  him,  but  I  love  him  the  better 
for  feeling  so." 

She  placed  her  hand  on  his  arm  in  an 
affectionate  way  of  protection.  I  looked 


302  H 

at  his  face  and  was  surprised.  In  all  that 
had  gone  before,  in  course  of  Mrs.  Hood's 
previous  speech  and  argument  about  the 
holocaust  of  the  will,  her  husband  had 
taken  a  silent,  but  an  obviously  acquies- 
cent and  an  intelligent  part.  In  this 
Second  Act,  as  she  called  it,  I  could  per- 
ceive that  his  role  was  merely  that  of  a 
spectator,  under  the  influence  of  an  aston- 
ished interest  in  the  unfolding  of  the 
drama.  What  she  was  saying  now  was 
entirely  new  to  him,  and  he  had  no  pre- 
conception what  her  next  words  would  be. 

"  Have  you  any  suggestions  to  offer," 
Mrs.  Hood  resumed,  "as  to  what  shall  be 
done  with  that  money?"  She  looked 
at  her  husband  and  she  looked  at  me. 
Neither  replied. 

"  Then  if  you  have  no  ideas,"  she  said — 
she  said  "i-dea"  with  just  a  suspicion  of 
the  American  way  of  dwelling  on  the  first 
syllable.  "If  you  have  no  i-deas,  I  will 
tell  you  mine — that  the  money  shall  be 
put  into  a  trust  for  the  benefit  of  a  certain 
little  boy — I  hardly  know  how  to  call  him, 
but  he  is  a  little  boy  that  all  of  us  know, 


H  Jfelong  3°3 

and  no  doubt  the  law  will  have  some  way 
of  describing  him  so  that  he  can  be  identi- 
fied— a  little  boy  who  is  away  down  in  the 
West  just  now,  living  with  his  mother  in 
a  caravan." 

Perhaps  Mrs.  Hood  ought  not  to  have 
done  it  just  in  this  way.  She  ought  to  have 
been  more  thoughtful,  considering  that 
her  husband's  heart  was  not  very  sound, 
and  ought  not  to  have  subjected  it  to  such 
an  emotional  surprise.  But  the  poor  lady 
had  a  good  deal  to  occupy  her  excellent 
brain,  in  planning  all  these  schemes  in  a 
financial  and  legal  atmosphere  that  was 
not  familiar  to  her.  George  went  fright- 
fully pale.  He  pressed  his  hand  over 
his  side  convulsively.  I  fully  thought 
he  was  on  the  point  of  losing  conscious- 
ness, but  after  what  appeared  to  be  a 
spasm  of  terrible  pain  recovered  himself 
quickly. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,  Olga,"  he  stam- 
mered, "that  you — you — can  make  such 
a  proposal  as  this  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  with  an  affected 
carelessness,  "  since  no  one  else  seems 


304  H  jfelonp 

to  have  had  the  intelligence  to  propose 
it." 

Hood  turned  to  me.  "  I  told  you  long 
ago,"  he  said,  "that  she  was  the  most 
wonderful  woman  in  the  world  ;  but  I  did 
not  then  know  how  wonderful." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE    HAND    OF    DEATH 

THE  details  of  the  trust  were  arranged 
without  difficulty,  the  law,  as  Mrs.  Hood 
had  foreseen,  finding  a  way  of  identifying 
the  beneficiary — as  it  was  pleased  to  call 
him — Mrs.  Hood  and  myself  being  ap- 
pointed as  trustees.  The  process  of  the 
business  had  required  several  interviews 
at  the  house  in  Berkeley  Square,  but 
about  a  fortnight  after  all  had  been 
settled  I  received  a  summons  from  Mrs. 
Hood  more  urgent  than  any  that  had 
called  me  to  the  business  meetings.  The 
words  of  the  hand-sent  note  were  not 
very  coherent ;  they  were  written  in  evi- 
dent haste,  but  I  gathered  from  them  that 
Hood  had  suffered  one  of  his  most  severe 
heart  attacks  and  was  gravely  ill. 

When  I  came  to  the  house  I  found  that 

20 

305 


TTbe  tmnfc  ot  Deatb 


the  doctor  was  already  there,  and  had 
been  in  attendance  for  several  hours.  He 
confessed  himself  in  some  doubt  about 
his  diagnosis.  It  seemed  that  Hood  had 
been  found  by  the  housemaid,  who  came 
in  the  morning  to  open  the  shutters  of 
the  smoking-room,  asleep,  as  she  im- 
agined, in  the  armchair.  He  had  not 
moved  at  the  noise  made  in  opening  the 
door,  and  the  girl  had  gone  out  again. 
The  butler  did  not  come  down  till  half 
an  hour  or  so  later,  and  immediately  she 
saw  him  the  housemaid  told  him  that  she 
had  found  their  master  in  the  smoking- 
room,  asleep.  The  butler  then  went  in. 
Hood  was  still  half  sitting,  half  lying,  in 
the  chair,  not  having  moved  at  all  since 
the  girl  first  saw  him.  The  butler  thought 
that  there  was  something  not  quite  natu- 
ral in  the  absolute  stillness  with  which 
his  master  lay,  and  purposely  made  one 
or  two  little  movements  and  noises  beside 
him  enough  to  awake  a  man  in  a  normal 
sleep,  but  Hood  still  did  not  stir  or  show 
consciousness.  Then  the  butler  began 
to  be  seriously  alarmed.  He  went  for 


Sbe  t>anfc  of  2>eatb  3°; 

Hood's  servant,  who  said  at  once  that  he 
supposed  his  master  to  be  suffering  from 
the  effects  of  some  narcotic  which  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  taking.  Between 
them  the  two  men  carried  Hood  to  his 
room  and  laid  him  on  his  bed,  with  no 
more  movement  on  his  part  than  if  they 
had  been  carrying  a  corpse.  A  little  later 
Mrs.  Hood's  maid  took  in  her  mistress's 
tea,  and  by  her  they  sent  word  that  Mr. 
Hood  seemed  seriously  unwell.  As  soon 
as  Mrs.  Hood  had  seen  him  she  sent  for 
the  doctor,  who  had  tried  one  or  two 
simple  means  of  bringing  the  patient 
back  to  consciousness,  but  without  suc- 
cess. He  had  now  determined  to  leave 
him  a  while  to  allow  the  possible  effect 
of  the  narcotic  to  expel  itself,  but  he  con- 
fessed to  some  doubt  as  to  the  degree  in 
which  the  comatose  state  of  the  patient 
was  due  to  narcotic  poisoning,  and  the 
degree  to  which  it  had  been  induced  by  a 
heart  seizure  which  he  suspected.  He 
inquired  particularly  whether  anything 
had  occurred  the  previous  evening  likely 
to  cause  Hood  shock  or  excitement,  but 


308  Tibe  1bano  of  S>eatb 

nothing  of  the  kind  could  be  remembered 
or  suggested.  When  his  wife  had  seen 
him  last,  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  he 
had  been  in  his  normal  state  of  indifferent 
health.  No  one  had  seen  him  since.  He 
was  in  the  habit  of  switching  off  the  elec- 
tric light  for  himself  when  he  went  to 
bed. 

I  went  to  his  room  to  look  at  him,  and, 
but  for  the  doctor's  assurance,  should 
have  thought  it  to  be  but  the  corpse  of 
my  friend  that  lay  so  pallid  and  inertly  on 
the  bed.  His  face  and  even  his  lips  were 
of  such  an  extraordinary  whiteness  that 
they  did  not  make  a  patch  of  color  even 
on  the  whiteness  of  the  pillow.  His  hands 
against  the  sheet  had  a  certain  tint,  but  it 
was  a  yellow  lividness  of  hue,  not  the  color 
of  healthy  blood  and  skin.  The  doctor 
drew  me  aside  and  asked  me  if  I  was 
aware  of  any  circumstances  in  George 
Hood's  life  that  made  it  probable  that  a 
shock  might  have  occurred  to  his  system. 
"  Of  course,"  he  added,  "  I  do  not  ask  you 
to  violate  any  confidences,  but  I  know  you 
are  his  nearest  friend."  For  answer  I  bade 


Ube  t>ant>  of  Deatb  309 

the  valet  bring  Hood's  coat,  and  caused 
the  doctor  to  feel  the  patch  of  mail  armor 
sewn  in  where  he  had  an  apprehension  of 
Tio's  Spanish  knife.  "  I  cannot  tell  you 
any  more,"  I  said,  "  than  what  you  may 
infer  from  that."  He  nodded  thought- 
fully, but  said  nothing. 

It  was  not  until  after  mid-day  that  Hood 
woke  out  of  that  deathly  coma,  and  all 
that  while  Mrs.  Hood  and  the  doctor  and 
myself  were  in  and  out  of  his  room  con- 
stantly, watching  for  a  sign  of  his  con- 
sciousness returning.  The  doctor,  more 
and  more  puzzled,  was  on  the  point  of 
sending  for  a  colleague  to  share  the  re- 
sponsibility by  giving  a  second  opinion- 
he  was  actually  downstairs  writing  his 
note  at  the  moment — when  George  Hood 
gently  opened  his  eyes,  looked  up  into 
mine  with  the  saddest  smile  of  recogni- 
tion, and  moved  his  lips.  Twice  he  ap- 
peared to  try  to  say  the  same  words,  but 
no  sound  came  from  his  feebly  parted 
mouth.  I  bent  down  over  him  with  my 
ear  close  to  his  face.  "  What  did  you  say, 
old  friend  ?  "  I  asked  him. 


3io  ZTbe  tmnfc  of  5>eatb 

Then  his  lips  moved  again  as  before, 
and  I  gathered  the  faintly  uttered  words  : 
"  She  's  dead." 

I  had  no  doubt  that  he  was  speaking  in 
pursuance  of  some  dream  or  vision  that 
had  occupied  his  hours  of  unconscious- 
ness. I  nodded  to  him,  with  a  smile,  as 
one  humors  a  sick  man's  fancies.  Then  I 
went  down-stairs,  many  steps  at  a  time,  to 
summon  the  doctor. 

From  that  moment  until  late  in  the 
afternoon  no  one  was  permitted  to  see 
Hood  except  the  two  doctors  and  a  pro- 
fessional nurse.  The  doctors'  dictum  was 
that  the  heart  was  in  state  so  feeble  that 
the  slightest  effort  might  be  too  great  for 
it,  and  both  Mrs.  Hood  and  myself  were 
forbidden  to  enter  the  sick-room  on  the 
very  reasonable  ground  that  our  presence 
might  induce  Hood  to  make  an  effort  to 
speak  to  us  which  he  would  not  be  so 
likely  to  make  with  strangers.  The  doc- 
tors hardly  tried  to  disguise  their  ex- 
tremely grave  opinion  of  the  case,  but 
seemed  inclined  to  think  that  the  patient 
gained  strength  as  the  day  wore  on. 


ZIbe  1banC>  of  2>eatb  3" 

About  six  o'clock  one  of  them  came  to 
me  and  said  :  "  We  think  you  had  better 
go  to  him.  He  is  so  very  anxious  to  talk 
to  you  that  to  prevent  it  would  be  likely 
to  agitate  and  excite  him  more  harmfully 
than  the  actual  fatigue  of  talking.  But 
try  to  let  him  talk  as  little  as  you  can.  Sit 
close  beside  him,  so  that  he  will  not  have 
to  speak  above  a  whisper." 

A  great  change  for  the  better  had 
passed  in  my  poor  friend's  aspect  during 
the  hours  since  I  had  seen  him  last.  His 
cheeks  had  a  spot  of  hectic  color,  and  his 
lips  had  not  the  same  deathly,  bloodless 
look.  He  greeted  me  with  the  smile  that 
always  lighted  his  face  so  charmingly  as  I 
came  in. 

"  Glad  to  see  you  looking  so  much  bet- 
ter, old  fellow,"  I  said. 

I  drew  the  chair  close  beside  the  bed. 
"  Yes,"  he  agreed  in  a  weak  voice,  "  I  am 
better,  for  a  while — I  don't  think  it  is  for 
long." 

"  Ah,  you  must  n't  say  that,"  I  pleaded. 

"  I  don't  say  it  very  regretfully,"  he  re- 
plied. 


312  Ube  1ban&  of  2>eatb 

"  Not  for  yourself  perhaps,"  I  said. 
"  But  you  might  regret  it  for  us — for  your 
wife  and  me,  if  anything  should  happen  to 
you." 

"  Would  you  miss  me  ? "  he  asked  pa- 
thetically. He  put  out  a  feeble  hand  and 
sought  with  it  till  he  found  mine  ready  to 
grasp  it  gently.  "  But  that  again  will  not 
be  for  long.  I  think  we  shall  all  meet 
again  somehow — somewhere." 

"  I  am  so  glad  you  are  able  to  think 
that,"  I  said. 

"Then  I  don't  think  we  shall  have 
any  misunderstandings.  I  think  we  shall 
all  know  each  other  then.  It 's  the  not 
understanding  that  makes  all  the  trouble 
and  unhappiness,  is  it  not  ?  " 

"  Most  of  it,  no  doubt,"  I  said. 

"  Then  you  and  I  and  Gracia  and  Olga 
may  all  be  friends  together,  I  think.  At 
all  events  we  shall  know  about  it  soon. 
I  shall  know  very  soon.  Gracia  is  there 
already.  She  knows  now." 

"  There  already  !  What  do  you 
mean  ?  " 

"  I  forgot.    Did  you  not  know  ?   Gracia 


Hbe  1>an&  of  Beatb  313 

is  dead.     She  came  to  me  last  night  to  tell 
me." 

I  had  no  doubt  that  he  was  slightly  de- 
lirious, but  he  spoke  perfectly  calmly. 

"  I  think  that  was  what  upset  me,"  he 
went  on,  in  the  most  matter-of-fact  voice 
to  be  conceived.  "  I  was  in  the  smoking- 
room  alone,  late,  and  she  came  in  ;  or  at 
least  she  was  there,  I  do  not  know  how  she 
came  in.  I  do  not  suppose  that  she  opened 
my  door,  for  doubtless  her  body  is  there, 
down  in  the  West  country.  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  it  was,  but  I  knew  that  she  was 
dead.  She  said  nothing  to  me,  and  she 
looked  as  I  had  always  known  her,  with 
all  her  beauty  and  color,  but  I  knew  that 
she  was  dead.  I  was  going  to  speak  to 
her,  but  it  seemed  as  if  the  effort  choked 
me,  and  after  that  I  remember  nothing- 
till  now." 

I  had  no  manner  of  doubt  that  this  story 
was  a  suggestion  of  his  subconscious  mind 
while  he  lay  in  his  coma.  I  found  that  he 
did  not  really  wish  to  say  much  more  to 
me,  after  mentioning  his  wish  and  his  con- 
fidence that  his  boy  should  be  well  looked 


3H  ^ be  1bano  of  5>eatb 

after ;  and  remembering  the  doctor's  cau- 
tion that  I  should  let  him  talk  as  little  as 
possible,  I  soon  left  him. 

From  time  to  time,  during  the  rest  of 
the  day,  his  wife  and  I  were  constantly 
with  him.  The  doctor  had  left  instructions 
with  the  nurse  to  call  him  by  telephone  if 
any  change  occurred,  and  I  augured  the 
worst  from  this.  All  through  the  after- 
noon, however,  there  was  no  appreciable 
loss  in  his  strength,  and  whenever  I  saw 
him  he  smiled  with  a  cheerful  courage 
that  was  very  touching.  He  did  not  talk 
much  more  to  me,  his  weakness  probably 
making  compliance  with  the  doctor's  or- 
ders in  this  respect  quite  easy  for  him. 
Once  when  his  wife  came  out  she  was  in 
tears,  and  I  guessed  that  he  might  have 
been  saying  "  Good-bye"  to  her. 

About  half-past  eight  in  the  evening 
Mrs.  Hood  and  I  were  dining  together 
when  a  summons  came  from  the  nurse. 
We  hastened  up-stairs  to  find  that  the 
great  change  had  begun.  Hood  lay  with 
a  slight  restlessness  of  the  hands,  but  a 
perfectly  placid  face.  He  was  quite  un- 


ZTbe  1bano  of  H)eatb  315 

conscious.  Just  before  he  died  the  doctor 
came,  but  nothing  was  to  be  done,  and  in 
silent  helplessness  we  watched  the  peace- 
ful passing  of  his  life. 

It  was  about  half-past  eleven  when  I 
left  the  house  where  I  had  been  so  many 
hours.  My  head  was  hot  and  fevered, 
and  I  had  a  desire  to  walk  far  and  fast 
through  the  fresh  night  air  before  going 
to  my  rooms ;  but  I  had  taken  no  more 
than  a  few  steps  down  the  pavement  of 
Berkeley  Square  when  a  man  stopped  me. 
For  the  first  moment  I  thought  he  was  a 
beggar,  but  the  next  I  recognized  him.  It 
was  Tio.  Even  by  the  uncertain  gleam 
of  the  street  lamp  I  saw  a  look  in  his  eye 
that  caused  me  to  glance  down  the  street 
and  feel  a  certain  relief  at  the  sight  of  the 
familiar  British  figure  of  the  policeman  on 
beat. 

Tio  lost  no  time  and  wasted  no  words 
in  formal  greetings.  "  Is  it  true,"  he  de- 
manded with  a  fierce  energy,  "  that  he  is 
dead?" 

"  That  who  is  dead  ?  "  I  asked,  though  I 
knew  perfectly  of  whom  he  spoke. 


316  Hbe  tmno  of  2)eatb 

"  Your  friend,  Mr.  Hood.  Is  he  dead  ? 
I  know  this  is  his  house.  They  told  me 
he  was  dead." 

"Yes,  Tio,"  I  said,  "  he  is  dead.  He 
has  been  dead  some  hours." 

He  swore,  in  a  fierce,  low  voice,  a  gypsy 
oath.  Then  he  put  his  hand  to  his  belt 
with  a  quick  movement,  at  which  I  went 
backward  a  step.  Tio  noticed  my  action, 
and  smiled  with  a  scorn  that  seemed  to 
say  I  need  not  be  afraid,  that  I  was  too 
small  game  for  his  bag.  He  drew  out  his 
knife,  bent  down  and  laid  the  bright  blade 
on  the  pavement,  set  his  foot  across  the 
steel,  and  with  a  press  of  foot  and  hoist 
of  hand  snapped  the  blade  in  two.  He 
drew  himself  upright  and  crossed  himself 
piously.  Then  he  expectorated,  with  a 
solemnity  which  showed  that  this  too  was 
part  of  some  religious  or  mystic  rite,  over 
the  shattered  steel. 

"What  did  you  do  that  for ? "  I  asked 
him. 

"  I  swore  to  her,"  he  said  in  explanation, 
"  that  the  first  thing  my  knife  should 
touch  would  be  his  heart,  his  life." 


trnno  of  S>eatb  317 

I  thought  of  the  patch  of  mail. 

"His  life  is  gone,"  he  went  on,  "and 
that  oath  is  broken ;  but  now  the  knife  is 
broken  too,  and  it  will  never  be  for  any 
other  use." 

"  Did  she  require  this  oath  of  you — ask 
you  to  swear  it,  I  mean  ?  " 

"  She  !  She  had  no  heart  left  for  such  a 
thing.  He — that  dead  man — stole  all  the 
heart  and  courage  from  her.  She  !  She 
was  all  the  while  begging  me  not  to  do  it, 
telling  me  I  was  not  to  do  it." 

"  And  why  did  you  not  do  as  she  told 
you  ?  Why  did  you  come  here  on  such 
an  errand  ?  What  do  you  think  she  would 
have  said  to  you  if  you  had  come  back  and 
told  her  you  had  done  it  ?  " 

"  What  she  would  have  said  ? "  he  re- 
peated savagely.  "  I  should  not  have 
come  if  there  had  been  a  chance  of  her 
'saying'  when  I  went  back.  She  has 
gone,  like  him,  where  there  is  no  '  saying,' 
and  they  can  be  settling  their  affairs  even 
now  between  themselves." 

I  started  with  surprise.  "  You  mean  to 
say  that  she  is  dead  ?  " 


318  tlbe  tmno  of  Beatb 

"  She  is  dead  —  yes,"  he  answered. 
"  A'nd  you  know,  better  than  most,  who 
kiUed  her.  It  was  him,  your  friend,  the 
dead  man  in  that  house."  He  jerked 
his  thumb  fiercely  at  the  house  in  ques- 
Jlion. 

"  She  is  dead  ! "  I  echoed.  "  When  did 
she  die?" 

"  Before  midnight  last — a  day  from  this 
hour,  hour  for  hour,  or  nearly  so." 

It  was  a  very  astonishing  thing.  .  He 
indicated  the  exact  time  at  which  George 
Hood  had  fancied  that  he  saw  her.  The 
step  of  the  policeman  came  resonantly  up 
the  pavement.  I  said  nothing  till  he  had 
passed  us.  My  thoughts  were  full  of  this 
strange  coincidence,  if  it  were  not  to  be 
called  by  another  name.  If  Gracia  had 
not  appeared  to  Hood,  or  if  Hood  had  not 
fancied  her  apparition  (in  whichever  way 
it  may  be  right  to  state  it)  doubtless  a 
horrid  tragedy  would  have  been  enacted, 
followed  by  a  horrid  scandal.  It  is  seldom 
that  these  telepathic  appearances,  attested 
by  so  many  witnesses,  of  one  at  the  mo- 
ment of  death  to  another,  seem  to  serve 


Ube  1bano  of  IDeatb  319 

any  purpose ;  but  this  had  served  an 
obvious  purpose. 

The  policeman  went  by  again  with  his 
eye  fixed  in  suspicion  on  Tio,  and  glancing 
scarcely  more  favorably  at  myself.  Tio 
returned  his  look  with  undisguised  hostil- 
ity, and,  as  a  precaution,  set  his  foot  on 
the  fragments  of  his  knife. 

"  You  say  she  begged  you  not  to  do 
him  an  injury  ?  "  I  said  when  the  man  had 
passed.  There  was  no  need  to  explain 
to  whom  the  pronouns  referred  to. 

"  When  I  offered  to  swear  I  would  kill 
him  she  wanted  me  to  swear  I  would  not. 
Poor  thing,  he  had  taken  all  the  heart  out 
of  her.  But  I  would  not  do  it.  I  swore 
that  I  would  kill  him." 

"  Was  that  soon  before  she  died  ?  " 

"Within  an  hour.  Have  you  any  more 
questions  ?  " 

"  One  or  two.  First,  what  are  you 
going  to  do  now  she  is  dead  ?  " 

"  Why  do  you  want  to  know  that  ?  " 

"  There  is  some  money  to  come  to  you 
under  Mr.  Hood's  will." 

Tio  laughed.     "  Mr.  Hood  can  keep  his 


320  Ube  1ban&  ot  Deatb 

money,"  he  said,  "  or,  at  least,  any  one  it 's 
of  use  to  may  have  it.  I  don't  want  to 
touch  his  dirt.  I  shall  go  back  to  Spain." 

"  You  will  do  as  you  like  about  your 
money,"  I  said,  "  but  there 's  another  thing 
in  the  will  that  concerns  you  a  little — the 
boy." 

I  had  expected  trouble,  and  it  was  a 
relief  when  he  said  carelessly :  "  Oh,  the 
boy  ! — you  may  have  him  if  you  want  him. 
He's  of  no  use  to  me." 

Hate  was  a  strong  passion  with  Tio. 
Because  the  child  was  half  George  Hood's, 
whom  he  had  hated,  he  was  indifferent  to 
it,  though  it  was  also  half  Gracia's,  whom 
he  had  worshipped.  Also,  although  hate 
was  a  strong  passion  with  him,  it  left  room, 
maybe,  for  other  motives,  and  he  was 
doubtless  relieved  to  be  rid  of  the  incum- 
brance  of  a  boy. 

So  that  was  the  end  of  it,  of  the  as- 
pirations and  the  self-torturings.  Hither 
my  friend  had  been  brought  by  the  guid- 
ance of  his  "  daemon,"  or  rather,  as  he 
would  have  phrased  it,  by  his  own  ineffec- 
tive following  of  the  guidance.  To  this 


TTbe  toanfc  ot  IDeatb  321 

end  it  had  come  at  last,  the  life  of  him 
who  once  had  prayed  God  that  he  might 
be  shown  the  way  of  truth,  with  the  view 
of  going  down  into  the  arena  of  life 
and  fighting  to  make  it  clear  to  others. 
There  was  an  irony  in  it  all.  Capable  of 
so  much,  accomplishing  so  little,  or  no- 
thing at  all ;  or,  if  anything,  only  that 
which  it  had  been  better  had  not  been 
done  !  Yet  that,  after  all,  is  perhaps  more 
than  we  have  the  right  to  say.  It  is  not 
for  us  but  for  the  Creator  of  life  to  say 
that  He  is,  or  is  not,  justified  of  this  or 
that  one  of  His  children,  His  creations. 
To  judge  them  is  perhaps  to  judge 
through  them  the  Creator,  which  is  hardly 
within  the  duty  of  the  creature. 


THE    END 


BY    MVRTUB    REBD 


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being  laid  in  a  London  Art  Colony,  and  the  hero  an  American 
sculptor.  The  book  contains  humor,  pathos,  and  sentiment, 
mingled  in  just  the  proper  proportion  to  make  it  delightful 
reading. 

The  Ragged  Messenger 

By  W.  B.  MAXWELL. 

12°.     Net,  $1.20.     (By  mail,  $1.35.) 

"  This  is  a  remarkable  novel — one  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  recent  years.  Mr.  Maxwell  has  imagination  ;  he  has  a 
keen  eye  for  human  emotion,  for  the  pathos  of  life  and  the 
comedy.  And  with  it  all  a  sense  of  proportion  and  the  power 
of  arrangement,  which  have  enabled  him  to  produce  a  four- 
square and  powerful  piece  of  work.  .  ,  .  It  is  a  strong 
book  and  a  fine  book." — St.  James  Gazette, 

Green  Mansions 

A  Romance  of  the  Tropical  Forest 

By  W.  H.  HUDSON. 

12°,     Net,  $1.20.     (By  mail,  $1.35.) 

"A  fine  piece  of  work,  purely  romantic,  and,  although 
written  in  very  sound  prose,  purely  poetic.  The  descriptions 
of  forest  and  scenery  are  exquisite,  and  no  less  exquisite  are 
the  passages  which  describe  the  half-supernatural  heroine, 
whose  pursuit  forms  a  wonderful  idyl  of  savage  life.  A  book 
that  should  on  no  account  be  missed  by  those  who  appreciate 
what  is  rare  and  fine  in  fiction." — Athenaum. 


G.  P. 

NEW  YORK 


PUTNAM'S 


SONS 

LONDON 


A     000126521      4 


